Anyone solved MF Tri Vista SACD problems?

So Budt, enlighten me. I've heard the standard anti-MF rant from US owners before. Tell me something new, such as:

What was the product?

When did you buy it?

When did it fail?

What happened next?

Were you offered anything by the dealer/distributor/manufacturer?

If so, did you refuse it (and why)?

Why does MF attract all the hostility and not Krell? What did Krell do differently?

Your post is light on detail, but it implies that you bought a new MF product, which failed?/became obsolete? (it's not clear from your post) under warranty and MF left you completely holding the baby. It's hard to believe that US consumer law would allow that in any form.

Here's my story:

I bought a new TriVista SACD in 2003, the drive failed under warranty and after quite a few months of uncertainty, I accepted the MF exchange offer and replaced it with a brand new kW 500 amplifier at no charge.

It did cost me money because at that point I had no source and two amplifiers. Sorting that out meant spending, but it also became an upgrade. Six years on I still have and love the kW 500, so overall I'm not at all unhappy.

First off, I bought mine new ($7,000) from an authorized dealer. 2nd, it went back for repair and came back unrepaired. Third---shame on them for using an "unrobust" transport--they new they were using a crap transport when the built/designed it. Fourth, why would I trade mine back to them for another one of their "unrobust" players--as that is all they had when mine broke down. Fifth, my dealer came through with flying colors - not MF.

Gtfour, please make sure you post when your kW stops working. It's only a matter of time. Good luck.

No one really knew that the Philips transport is faulty. This includes Marantz, MF, Krell, EMM Labs and maybe others. The known "modders" like us (APL Hi-Fi), Modwright, Stan Warren and others were left helpless too.

This Philips transport is very nice and it was the pioneer when it comes to Multichannel SACD. It sounded amazingly good and it is built with extremely reliable laser pick-up/spindle assembly. It was simply one of the best CD/SACD transports at that time.

How can a designer be sure that only certain part of the Digital Signal Processor (the SACD decoder, a.k.a. FURORE) will fail after 2-3 years of use? Impossible!

Philips realized the failure, and even one of their engineering team came up with proposal for fixing the issue, but the cost was so high that they simply decided to move on. Still, they remain the only company to blame when it comes to this failure because they have announced the faulty part NLA (no longer available). Since this a proprietary application specific device designed by Philips, no other company is capable of fixing this issue.

In conclusion, this particular CD/SACD transport/DSP from Philips was one of the best to consider when designing CD/SACD player. None of the companies who used it in their players could have known about this failure, and none of them can fix it without the support from Philips, which is non-existent when it comes to this particular problem.

Hope this helps!

Best wishes,
Alex Peychev
www.aplhifi.com

Cerrot,

1. Again I ask, why does this hostility only go at Musical Fidelity?

Krell used the same Philips transport in the SACD Standard. Did they stockpile transports in case of failure? Did they know it was a crap transport when they built/designed it? Did they test it properly? Why no shame on Krell?

2. My TriVista also went in for repair and came back unrepaired (and with a different fault). As is always the case with repairs outside the country of the product's origin, it went to a local repairer chosen by the distributor. I was unhappy with what happened but I have enough objectivity to judge that it was not directly Musical Fidelity's fault.

3. So you concede that in fact MF did offer to trade your kW SACD for another player but you declined their offer. That is, you made a choice. Be a man and take responsiblity for your choices.

4. My kW 500 has not missed a beat in six years of operation. I suspect it would survive a nuclear attack. Is it possible that you are so embittered by what happened with your kW SACD that you have lost perspective where Musical Fidelity is concerned?