Music Hall Maverick? - Has Anyone Heard...

Out of my entire collection of CD's, my Maverick has only refused to play one. Unfortunately, it's one of my favorites. I have a later unit, so I think it's safe to assume the problem has been addressed.

Neoprufrok, I have heard this complaint with early Mavericks, but supposedly this issue was worked out after the initial hiccup.

I actually owned one for about four months and have now exchanged it for an Arcam CD93T. I think that the CD player is good but not better than anything in its price range. Transparency and rhythm are its strong suits, but overall detail, lushness, and bass fullness are not. The SACD player was very good. However, I didn't find it to be any better than a Marantz 8260.

So why did I end up exchanging mine?

Well. It refused to play 30% of my CD collection initially. So I ended up brining it back to the dealer who contacted the Music Hall rep. The MH rep told them nothing was wrong with the player and sent it back to me. It still refused to play my cd collection. Afraid maybe I had bad CD's I bought a duplicate version of Coldplay's "A Rush of Blood to the Head." Same problem. Wouldn't read or play the disc. So I brought it back to teh dealer who again contacted the MH rep. He suggested that MH had a bad run of chipsets, so they replaced some chip.

I brought it home, and instead of just not playing my discs, it now ejected them spinning in the tray! This damaged two of my CD's. MH rep than agreed to get me a new unit. For which I waited two months. I got tired and demanded an exchange. So I ended up with an Arcam CD93t which I loved when I auditioned at the same store.

I know not all owners have had this problem, but MH's handling of this issue was slow at best.

Sorry people, the review I mentioned above was in Tellig's column in the recent Stereophile. My apologies.

Joe,
Looking forward to seeing you. Bring the 25 with you if you can, and we'll pit them against each other!

Hey Joe, any interest in A/Bing the Maverick against the Music Hall MMF25?

I have heard some say they actually prefer the Redbook performance of the MMF25 to the Maverick, but my drinking by the label(always dangerous in audio and life in general) tells me the Maverick should be the winner.

See you in a couple of weeks!
Joe

I have had the Maverick in my setup for about 3 months. SACD is very good, Redbook using the upsampling is excellent. Good looks, lots of heft, great remote. Switching between the SACD and Redbook layers is only available on the remote as the front of the Maverick is very spartan. There have been a number of issues with the first run of this player reading some discs. I myself have not encountered this. However, I have had some problems getting the tray to open and close at times unless I power the unit off then on again. It has been better the last month or so though. Another quirk is the length of time it takes to read a disc in prep for play. If you were listening to a Redbook disc then switch to an SACD, the machine will default to the Redbook layer unless you select the SACD layer from the remote. If you are looking for a well built, good looking 2 channel only machine, I would give this thing a look see. At it's price point I think it gives a very good accounting of itself. I don't regret getting one. FWIW, I bought a demo unit from an authorized dealer, so I did not pay full freight. I replaced a fully modded Sony NS500V with it and am quite impressed. So far, I prefer (in my room, with my gear) using the upsampling feature for Redbook. If it's quality 2 channel SACD you are after this thing does it good...

TAS did a review of the Maverick in their latest issue. Very favourable review. Two channel only on the SACD if memory serves but for myself it wouldn't be a problem.

Check around doing a "search" on the net for Music Hall Maverick. I have looking into purchasing a SACD player for two channel playback only (not interested on multi-channel audui except for video) and have been seeing a few postings about some play problems with the unit which I am going to keep an eye on.........good luck