Thread: mercury living presence and denon's

Posts: 5

Post by suburbanDK March 23, 2005 (1 of 5)
I've read the "rachmaninoff dud" thread with interest and wanted to post my experience so far (and solicit more comments):

The Starker/Cello Suites will not play on our 5900, starts skipping on track 13 and the whole 2nd disc or stops altogether. This is ONLY in multi-channel, stereo SACD & CD is no problem. Does this when warmed up; we sent it back to Denon and upon arrival, it worked. Left on several more hours, same old problem. We'd originally sent our first SACD copy back, got a replacement, same problem. Interestingly, the store's unit (which they gave us for a loaner) always works flawlessly with the disc. It's an earlier build date with earlier firmware (?!??). So, back to Denon she went. It's possible they only enabled the firewire and "forgot" to deal with the playback problem. Our dealer was supposed to speak with a Denon rep just after we returned it the 2nd time, I'll probably talk to our guy this weekend about it.
This is the only SACD with ANY problems (but our only MLP SACD so far). 15 Living Stereo's play without a hitch in MCH, as does our sole Harmonia Mundi, as do the other 5 popular music stereo discs.
Bottom line here is that it seems to me to be a combination of disc and player.
I have read about a concern with the power supply to the laser, a link discussing this on AudioAsylum.com is attached.

For those of you with Denon's, I'll post an update to the (I hope) resolution of this fiasco.

Dr Dave

Post by suburbanDK June 2, 2005 (2 of 5)
suburbanDK said:

I've read the "rachmaninoff dud" thread with interest and wanted to post my experience so far (and solicit more comments):

The Starker/Cello Suites will not play on our 5900, starts skipping on track 13 and the whole 2nd disc or stops altogether. This is ONLY in multi-channel, stereo SACD & CD is no problem. Does this when warmed up; we sent it back to Denon and upon arrival, it worked. Left on several more hours, same old problem. We'd originally sent our first SACD copy back, got a replacement, same problem. Interestingly, the store's unit (which they gave us for a loaner) always works flawlessly with the disc. It's an earlier build date with earlier firmware (?!??). So, back to Denon she went. It's possible they only enabled the firewire and "forgot" to deal with the playback problem. Our dealer was supposed to speak with a Denon rep just after we returned it the 2nd time, I'll probably talk to our guy this weekend about it.
This is the only SACD with ANY problems (but our only MLP SACD so far). 15 Living Stereo's play without a hitch in MCH, as does our sole Harmonia Mundi, as do the other 5 popular music stereo discs.
Bottom line here is that it seems to me to be a combination of disc and player.
I have read about a concern with the power supply to the laser, a link discussing this on AudioAsylum.com is attached.

For those of you with Denon's, I'll post an update to the (I hope) resolution of this fiasco.

Dr Dave

So, 2nd time's a charm.
Invoice says Denon replaced the laser pickup and ALL SACDs we have play perfectly, even in Multi-Channel, which it hadn't for our Mercury Living Presence discs (Starker/Bach Cello Suites & Stravinsky Firebird). Spent many enjoyable hours testing and listening to excerpts from the 20 Living Stereos, 2 Harmonia Mundis, 2 Cheskys, and the 3 Death Discs (MLPs). All after 24 hours warm-up; warm-up exacerbated the problem previously. Loading time's improved too.

Kudos plus to our local dealer, who kept pushing Denon on the issue, even going out and buying one of the MLP MCH discs (Chabrier & Roussel) and sending it to Denon for testing (AND giving us this disc when we got the unit back). A definite vote for our friends in bricks-and-mortar; I really wonder whether we'd have gotten this resolved without them.

Maybe it's just the joy of resolution ;-) but we both swear she sounds better on SACD now (we had the dealer's demo unit for the 3 months this all took).

I've attached a link to one of my previous postings with info links, for interested/affected parties.

2 happy campers, Dr Dave and Kathy

Post by prometheus August 23, 2005 (3 of 5)
I have a (maybe) related compatibility concern which I' d like to air with y'all out there in SuperAudioCyberspace.

When I began with SACD, I was--as an old Quadraphonic afficianado--enticed by the Multichannel feature and by the availability of many of my favorite (Szell!!) discs in the new medium. Worried about the outlay in greenbacks and about the long-term viability of the medium--sorry, zeus, Heresy, I know--and ignorant as to whether I was getting 'genuine' high-res. results, I bought a staggeringly cheap Toshiba universal player. This was enough to get me hooked on the medium but came with an odd quirk: it would refuse to play certain RBCDs or played them with an all-too--easy--to--hear mechanical clunking (sorry: this sounds increasingly like CarTalk!)coming from the machine. The discs in question could usually be identified as early-generation CDs from the Hannover Polygram plant which have always seemed to these amateur eyes to be thicker than subsequent releases and to have the central disc hole smooth and polished rather than rough.

As these were some of my most precious discs--and had never caused loading or playing problems on several CD and DVD players, I ditched the 'Cheapo' and bought a Denon 2900. This otherwise glorious machine--which is rapidly demoting my wife and daughter in the league table of my affections, not least with what it can do to old RBCD treasures--plays the allegedly offending discs perfectly. But--while there is nothing to hear--you can still FEEL unusual and unwarranted vibration if you place your hand on the top of the unit during play.

Any ideas as to what gives? Any suggestions other than trashing now unavailable jewels as not up to 21st. century snuff? Appreciate any input........

Post by Peter August 23, 2005 (4 of 5)
Would making a backup on CDR make any difference?

Post by prometheus August 24, 2005 (5 of 5)
Peter said:

Would making a backup on CDR make any difference?

Maybe a jolly good suggestion, for which thanks.

I have always worried, however, about the likely longevity of dye-based CD-Rs but have noticed some recently which advertise considerable guaranteed life-span. Not at the bottom end of the price range, either, needless to say. Also, not all hardware can play CD-Rs and therefore in the future.........but who knows if we'll all be blown to Kingdom come anyway(typically optimistic thought for 3:45 am!!!)?

As I said, the Denon (as opposed to the Toshiba)will faultlessly play the discs in question but one can feel--not hear--that it doesn't like them. It sounds as though the spinning sprocket (or whatever device comes up underneath the disc and through the central hole to initiate play) is slipping or having difficulty clamping while in motion. I would love to know from a techie whether or not this may do harm to my beloved Denon.

As you may deduce from the above, I am NOT a Science or Technology grad.!!!!

Closed