NicolasB
Distinguished Member
Okay, so, yes, I'm thinking quite seriously about buying an Arcam FMJ DV27, and I need people to tell me why I should buy something much cheaper instead. Please feel free to disagree with any or all of what follows, that's the whole idea, to make sure I have my facts straight....
Possible reasons for getting DV27
1) It's unusually good at playing CDs by DVD player standards. Arcam's own John Dawson reckons it is comparable to Arcam's own CD92, which is reckoned to be not bad value at £900 or so.
2) General opinion seems to be that it's probably as good as any other player that costs less than ~£2500.
3) Arcam has demonstrated a desire to offer useful upgrades for their DVD players, so it may not be a dead end purchase.
4) Will hopefully be able to be upgraded (for ~£200) to make a good quality DVD-Audio player in the New Year.
5) I'm likely to be buying a reasonably good quality sound system to go with it, perhaps Arcam AV8 and P7 into B&W Nautilus 803/HTM1/SCM1 plus Velodyne HGS-18. (Or perhaps not). So it makes sense to have a really good quality (e.g. low-jitter) player to go with it.
Possible reasons for not getting DV27
1) I'll not be upgrading my TV (Panasonic TXW32D4DPC) for another year or two. As three-year-old 32" widescreen TVs go, it's quite good, but it doesn't offer progressive scan (other than its own internal "100 Hz" and "flicker reduction" system, which is independent of the player) and it's not exactly a high-end projector in terms of sharpness.
2) If we ignore the DV27's CD playing ability for a moment, is it really that much better than players costing half the price? (E.g. Arcam DV88+, Denon 3800). For the difference in price between it and them I could very nearly buy a £900 CD player in its own right.
3) By the time I do start to get the full benefit of its video capabilities, will we have already reached the point where blue-laser discs have fundamentally overtaken DVD?
4) Even if they haven't, will there at least be digital-video-output players available by then?
5) Maybe I really ought to go the Home Cinema PC route instead.
6) £1600, man. That's a lot of pizza.
Thoughts?
Possible reasons for getting DV27
1) It's unusually good at playing CDs by DVD player standards. Arcam's own John Dawson reckons it is comparable to Arcam's own CD92, which is reckoned to be not bad value at £900 or so.
2) General opinion seems to be that it's probably as good as any other player that costs less than ~£2500.
3) Arcam has demonstrated a desire to offer useful upgrades for their DVD players, so it may not be a dead end purchase.
4) Will hopefully be able to be upgraded (for ~£200) to make a good quality DVD-Audio player in the New Year.
5) I'm likely to be buying a reasonably good quality sound system to go with it, perhaps Arcam AV8 and P7 into B&W Nautilus 803/HTM1/SCM1 plus Velodyne HGS-18. (Or perhaps not). So it makes sense to have a really good quality (e.g. low-jitter) player to go with it.
Possible reasons for not getting DV27
1) I'll not be upgrading my TV (Panasonic TXW32D4DPC) for another year or two. As three-year-old 32" widescreen TVs go, it's quite good, but it doesn't offer progressive scan (other than its own internal "100 Hz" and "flicker reduction" system, which is independent of the player) and it's not exactly a high-end projector in terms of sharpness.
2) If we ignore the DV27's CD playing ability for a moment, is it really that much better than players costing half the price? (E.g. Arcam DV88+, Denon 3800). For the difference in price between it and them I could very nearly buy a £900 CD player in its own right.
3) By the time I do start to get the full benefit of its video capabilities, will we have already reached the point where blue-laser discs have fundamentally overtaken DVD?
4) Even if they haven't, will there at least be digital-video-output players available by then?
5) Maybe I really ought to go the Home Cinema PC route instead.
6) £1600, man. That's a lot of pizza.
Thoughts?