I have had a Koala for a about a year now and I must say that it has perfromed flawlessly. I am not a big fan of the .50 cent remote that it came with, a player of this cost should have come with a decent remote. One thing I must say is that it sounds absolutly wonderful and compared to the Stibbert that I had in my home there was not 3K worth of difference in sound to jjustify the expense. It is a high end player with limited features but it is musical and very pleasent to listen to. |
I had a question for Bluenote regarding changing voltages for my Stibbert. I emailed them this morning hoping to hear back from them in a few days. I was shocked to see that my email was answered in 2 minutes!! That was amazing customer service!! Bob |
I just need to add a note to my last post. The transport on my CDP started to make a real strange noise over the last few days. I contacted Bluenote and they are going to ship a new transport out to me for free. My CDP is now over 2 years old and they have told they will service the player for as long as I own it with no charge. |
I have a Koala and the draw started sticking and sounding a bit funny when spinning. Then the whole front panel fell off. What had happened was the screws had loosened off the transport because of vibration, eventually vibrating the screws on the front panel. I contacted Bluenote and they blamed the supplier for opening it up. I told them that it still had their tape unbroken as a seal, but they refused to take responsibility saying that the supplier was known for upgrading their products and probably had some of their tape?. I do not mind the fault as it was just a matter of tightening things back up, but to blame the supplier is a bit crap. |
I own the BLue Note Stibbert Improved and I read this posting after I turned on my unit. Many times the draw
will open and close and I have to open and close the draw 5 times for it to finally stay open so I can load a cd.
The unit does sound very good, but I'm just wondering
when the unit will stop functioning. I'vd had the unit about a year. I hope there are no other problems with it.
Thankfully once the unit closes it does not open in the middle of playing a cd. |
I completely agree.We shouldn't have to deal with reliability issues when we spend so much money.A $2000
cd player is considered low end but it's not really
cheap by most peoples standards.My $200 Yamaha dvd
player hasn't malfunctioned once in three years.Over
the course of the last few months i had problems with
2 Exposure 2010s cd players and one Copland which
ironically uses a dvd rom drive. I guess at the end of the day customer support is what really matters. Exposure has a small distributor with one tech who is incompetent. My dealer had to tell him what to fix, he couldn't figure it out on his own.Lol.
Not Good. |
Thank you, Blazen69.
If the Bluenote does have a DVD transport, I think it should be better.
My understanding of why so few audiophile players come with DVD transports for the simple fact that the costs involved in getting a player FDA certified (remember, it's a laser device) with a CD transport/laser head assembly are a fraction of what it would cost if it had a DVD transport. Obviously, a $5000 CD player would have no problem justifying using a DVD transport/laser head assembly from the standpoint of simply the cost of the part.
I'm surprised that more audiophiles don't complain about the fact that the sub $100 DVD players purchased at supermarkets and electronic stores are night and day more reliable than the high-end audio CD players of today. It's a real shame... |
You make a good point Trelja. Wouldn't the Bluenote be better
in this regard. I'm pretty sure it uses a dvd transport.Is
it naive of me to think they are better. |
The overwhelming majority of failures in high-end audio components across the board are related to the transports/laser heads in CD players.
Though the CD player manufacturer gets the blame, they really have little to do it, and are at the mercy of the luck of the draw. Basically, they're all pretty much in the same boat here, as with a few notable exceptions, everyone is using the same failure prone Sony transport/laser head assembly. |
I had a Lector CDP 7 Mk II. The Stibbert blew it away here. The Raysonic betters them both and is a top loader |
Have to disagree about the Italian stuff, at least from my experience. I have owned three Lector CDP 7TL's and the Zoe, and all have operated flawlessly. I also owned the Stibbert and, regardless of what HP says, I like my CDP 7TL MkIII better, and to me it seemed the Lector was built better, but that's just my opinion and may partially be based on the top-loading transport of the Lector compared to the Stibbert's drawer. |
Stick with something with a track record and service center in the USA. Look at Naim. |
Thanks for the responses guys, i appreciate it. You basically confirmed what i was thinking. Italian gear always sounds good
but is rarely reliable. I have had too many problems lately and am not willing to have an unreliable product no matter how good it sounds.Ah well. On goes the search i guess. |
I had many issues with my Stibbert. I replaced it with a Raysonic 168, added cryoed NOS tubes from tubeman and Herbie Tube coolers. One of my audio friends said the Raysonic sounds even better. So far it's been very reliable. Alas, I did give rup be ability to listen to DADs and DVD-As |
It is funny you posted about this because I had a problem with my Stibbert yesterday after putting a cd into the unit. It just stopped functioning and I couldn't figure out why. I opened the unit up and saw the cd had somehow come out of the area where is was supposed to be seated. I pushed into the right position and it was back working normally again. I will say that I feel my Stibbert with sound fusion stand is an extremely good player. I also own a highly touted Marantz sa-7 since last week and I would say it is a very close horse race between the 2 players. If the Koala is anywhere near the Stibbert in sound quality, you will be very happy from a sonic perspective. Bob |
