2. digital
  3. 1309211017

DVD-A player - while they still exist

My Denon 2910 is on its last legs. It no longer plays SACDs or CDs. I fear it won't play DVD-As much longer. I also fear DVD-A players will disappear from the market. I only know of two still around - the Ayre universal and the Oppo 95. Even Meridian seems to have given up on the format.
I only have a few DVD-As, but they're important to me. I don't want to lose the ability to listen to them.
So I'm wondering if I should buy a good player while I still can. Maybe one of the last Meridians, used? Or a new Oppo? I'd have to keep it under $4,000, preferably way under $4,000, unless it was also the best CD player I had ever heard.
Any suggestions?
achilles

Showing 4 responses by achilles

achilles OP
135 posts
 
Wow, thanks for the tips. I'm intrigued by the Arcam and Muse suggestions, as well as the PC scenario.
I'm not willing to buy another Denon player, however reliable they've been for Elizabeth. I'm on my second one and it's failing the same way the first one did. It's too bad, too, because they sound great.
achilles OP
135 posts
 
OK, I've thought a lot about this and here's what I plan to do: get a Logitech Squeezebox Touch and a suitable DAC, maybe the Naim DAC, but we'll see. I already have an MSB Link DAC so I can get started as soon as I get the Squeezebox. (Although I doubt my old MSB can handle 24/96 from my DVD-As, it's a start.)
Thanks for all the helpful advice,
Michael
achilles OP
135 posts
 
I'm assuming I can't afford an Esoteric player, but I'll keep my eyes peeled for a used one.
I'm having second thoughts about saddling my new iMac with thousands of music files and accessing them constantly. Surely this will lead to premature hard drive failure. And the loss of all that music.
Goading me on, my Denon now won't play the Rush and Milos Karadaglic albums I burned onto DVD-A from HDTracks. It skips on certain tracks. I've made two copies and each one skips in a different spot. The second copy was burned at the slowest speed available (2x). So I think I will soon be without any hi rez digital capability.
achilles OP
135 posts
 
Yes I would have a backup of course.
But I still think the hard drive will crash sooner if I was accessing it for music. Here's why: I sue the computer for at most two hours in a given day. The rest of the time it's asleep. If I were to add a couple hours use to it, but listening to it through the stereo, haven't I just halved its lifespan? And if I crash my hard drive, I've nnot only wrecked a component in my sound system, in this set up, but I've not got a computer offline, which is always a huge pain.
Why do you say the hard drive is being constantly accessed?
You must have aleady thought through this. Let me know your ideas.
Thanks.
More to discover