Musical Fidelity Tri Vista SACD

Need to get sth with a CD-Pro2 drive. This one is very reliable and is likely to be supported for years to come. A good drive doesn't mean that sth else within the CDP may brake down - as is the case with your Capitole. Personally, I have upgraded from the capitle mk II SE to MBL 1531 and found it to be a substantial improvement.

I've been tempted many times to upgrade my MF CD-308 to the Tri Vista (...or to something from that (in)famous French company that seems to suffer from a similar severe case of bad customer service/not returning e-mails...) A good thing I didn't and stuck with my current CDP. Still looking.

Elberoth2 is correct. I am US service manager for dCS and our P8i and Verdi Encore were also units left without parts for the same Philips Mechanism's.

The Philips 5.2 Mech is a universal CD/SACD/DVD mechanism that is totally proprietary with its own Servo Controller board. The motor driver IC's get smoked when the Chinese disc drive motors short out.

The only good news is that the lasers=OPU(Optical Pickup Units) are still available for those fortunate to have only a vision problem with good motors and good drive electronics! We also can repair about 50% of servo boards.

We are successful repairing these dCS units within parts limits.

Anyone can take a Phillips drive out of about a million obsolete computers and put one in a MF CD player.

Unfortunately, that is not possible. This is niether a popular Philips CD drive, nor a DVD-rom drive. This is a dedicated Philips SACD drive.

The transport mechanism is only the part of the problem. Prolly even bigger problem is a servo board. When a drive goes, very often it takes out a servo board too. And those are literally unobtainable.

My advice: sell when it still works.

Anyone can take a Phillips drive out of about a million obsolete computers and put one in a MF CD player. They knew they were crappy drives when the built the machines. The kW had a 50% failure rate. At $7k retail, they didn't care. Mine actually went back for service and came back with a new transport-and just as bad, probably worse.
You know what the real sad part is? The kW sounded friggin awesome when it played.

I found myself avoiding my sound room during the time my kW was in the rack. THAT is the ultimate smack.

Even if the cd drive is no longer made,MF should correspond with the man.Sounds like lousy customer service to me.I'd be PO'd also.

Drjohn - I'm afraid, the only solution is to sell your player for parts. The Philips drive mechanism used in TriVista (and also kw SACD) is no longer beeing made, and no longer available.

Krell had run into the same problem with their SACD Standard mk II players, but they were able to develop an 'upgrade' kit, that replaces the Philips transport with their evo series DVD-rom drive. That was certainly time consuming for them, but at least they did not leave their customers with nothing.

From what I read on British forums, MF in the UK was offering a great discounts (up to 50% off) on their current players for TriVista owners that faced a drive failure. You may ask US MF distributor about that too.

Does anyone have an address for mailing to Musical Fidelity? I am going to try again. Doubtful, but maybe I have the wrong info

Well, I too have been abandoned by MF. They do not respond to any correspondence. I agree, I will NEVER buy another of their products and I will advise others to do same.

Had the same issue with my kW SACD. MF left me on the side of the curb. if not for my great dealer, I would have been totally screwed. I will NEVER buy another MF product.

If its the transport mechanism which I suspect it would be as just about any other part could be repaired. Musical Fidelity were not the only ones caught by the manufacturers descision to stop supplying this specefic transport mechanism . I beleive Emm labs and others were stung by this as well. This was not isolated to Musical Fidelity and is not a real picture of M F ,s quality. If you check the archives I beleive there are threads on this issue. I would be as pissed as you as well for the cost spent. Rick Walker as mentioned as far as I know still repairs Musical Fidelity.

Talk about deja vu. I just saw the exact same issue today with the exact same machine.Infact the words VERY EXPENSIVE PAPER WEIGHT were used.
Anyways,it appears you are not alone by any means.I have heard numerous complaints from other audiophiles as well.

Rick Walker in Charlotte, NC was doing service for them last I heard. Talk to him if you haven't. I knew him years ago and he knows what he is doing.