All I know is that CD player is just sooo HUGE! Yikes!
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There are posts in this thread by people speculating about products they have neither seen nor heard, nor are they informed about the history of the company and products except by what they have read here and perhaps in the 6moons review. I suppose my sincerity may be called into question by some due to my dealer status. In view of the ensuing responses to my post mentioning the updates affecting a small handful of preproduction units, perhaps my posting anything at all was unwise. Surely I didn't expect that, considering I was trying to post clarifying information. Maybe it was too much information for the skeptics eager to raise doubts. However, I stand by my statements and challenge the doubting Thomases to audition the products before commenting. AMR's products just now being released in final production form have gone through a far more thorough gestation period than other products do - five years, to be precise. Thorsten Loesch's active participation in the DIY community is known to many, and his involvement in this way has enabled him to consider and audition far more things than what designers typically do. He and Pat Wayne (one of the other partners in AMR who have personally invested in the company, in addition to outside investors) share about the same amount of involvement in the products' design, and they have been committed firmly to releasing the products only when all issues, no matter how small, have been addressed. Because they have been so diligent about these matters and have been so intent on getting the products working perfectly and reliably before releasing them, the product ship date has been delayed till now. Being familiar with what happened with other companies' products (Audio Aero, for example) which exhibited problems and being intensely driven not to allow such things to occur with their products, they have taken great pains to ensure tight quality control. 'Get it right the first time' clearly is their mission, and a Mk 2 version would neither be necessary nor acceptable to them. Having spoken with Thorsten, their dedication to perfection is very evident. With the aforementioned issues resolved, the results will be clear very soon. Other reviews are coming, and soon owners will be sharing their experiences with the CD player and amplifier. Having been into high end audio since the mid 70s and having a sense of what makes successful high performance products sparked my keen interest in AMR. Based upon people's reactions at last week's open house it would seem my instincts were right on, perhaps conservative. Only by experiencing them for one's self can one make valid judgments. Brian Walsh dealer |
I also had the pleasure of participating in the AMR demo at Essential Audio last weekend. I had very high expectations for this player. Minor operating quirks aside, I can confidently say that my expectations were met. This player has an absolutely stunning bass reproduction with plenty of weight and real slam. Very, very wide soundstage with nice layering, lots of detail and very palpable images. The top end was very airy, perhaps a just a touch too ethereal and dry for my taste (and compared to Brian's state of the art analog), but I am sure this can be easily tweaked with simple tube rolling. To sum it up, my first impressions were very positive, now I'd love to hear it in my own system side by side with my reference (Exemplar 5910). |
I think AMR has a chance to redefine the market space, at least to some extent, in terms of value for money. And even with my experience in the above demonstration, I have a feeling that the issues will be/have been addressed with the production units that they will be selling. But, as homage to the value that I've personally received from various forums I thought an honest and balanced perspective was fair. |
The issues mentioned by Jim affect only the pre-production units. The matter of the amplifier voltage sensing is related to an older OptiMains unit which Thorsten explained on the phone will be updated - the CD player has the updated OptiMains (the same as used in both production components) and has performed flawlessly. As for the CD player drawer, recognizing new discs, etc. they are all related to the door sensor which is being updated this weekend as well. I am confident that AMR has these concerns well behind them as they understand and have squarely addressed all of them. The 6moons review can be viewed here. The associated equipment used here for the demo and open house included an Atma-Sphere MP-1 preamplifier, Atma-Sphere MA-1 amplifiers, Sound Lab Ultimate-1 loudspeakers, line conditioning and cabling by Isoclean and Creative Cable Concepts, and other various accessories. |
I visited Essential Audio for a demonstration of the AMR units, so as a potential customer I can speak for the sound of the CD player. It really was everything you would want in sound - detailed, smooth, deep. Don't want to get out my dictionary of audiophile terms, but it was very nice - recognizing that it was put through extremely high end amplification and speakers. Brian, you can fill in the accompanying equipment. Other highlights included changing the 6 different sampling modes, allowing for optimizing the experience for different recordings, and the outstanding performance of the USB DAC port. On the spot, I ripped a cd to my laptop, attached a USB cable and it played through at a quality as good as you could hope. The DAC was not quite the same as using the CD-77's own transport, but not far off (using a lossless file). To the issues: The amplifier never worked. There is an ambitious feature to protect the machine from voltages out of range. That feature was being over-protective and would not let the amp boot up (Srajan's review of the cd player in 6moons talks about this issue as well, although he got it working by using UK voltage). The cd player had issues recognizing new discs. The sliding door to the transport had to be opened and closed several times and sometimes the cd player had to be rebooted in order to recognize a new disc. It also skipped on several tracks on different CD's. Still, the promise of these machines has me on the fence. I consider these issues to be associated with well traveled, pre-production units that need to get the updates that will be in the production units. I was impressed with Brian's ability to get Thorsten on the phone to troubleshoot (at an hour that would have been very late UK time), but I wish I would have been notified of the issues prior to traveling out of state for the demo. Those are the highlights and lowlights - AMR's stuff will be great I think. How quickly they will be great is the question that has me on the fence. |
Dev, you are very misinformed. You would not have been able to purchase a 'beta' unit. The design is complete, and as such no upgrades are planned nor will be needed. The AMR components are just becoming available, and any units purchased prior to release (this week) are the production units which are just now beginning to ship. Service in and out of warranty on units sold in North America will be handled through the North American distributor, not sent to England. The warranty is five years, six months on tubes. I recommend doing your homework before trying to find fault. Brian Walsh dealer |
Essentialaudio This updating kind off worries me. I know of another new model player that was released around 6 months or so ago that has already gone through quite off few updates and they were all addressing certain problems with the player. Why would they have not updated the players prior to them being shipped to you?? Updating them and shipping from the factory would make more sense then them coming to you for a week then sending them back to be updated and then back to you?? Sounds fishy? Dont mean to sound skeptical but this doesnt make sense. You address the sound question with (As for the sound, it speaks for itself.) What does that mean?? |
Essentialaudio thanks for the info. I almost bought a cd-77 in Jan. but something told me to hold off because I felt the unit was just too new and changes would be made. With the info that you have relayed only confirms that I was right and would have purchased a (beta version) version that would have needed to be updated, is AMR offering to do the updates at no cost including picking up the tab for the shipping? This unit weights allot so shipping back and forth would be costly not alone dealing with the risk of it getting damaged or even worse lost in shipping going back and forth so many times which I don't like to do. With this info. I defiantly will be waiting for the dust to settle and give the unit some time before I invest in it, not a inexpensive venture with it listing at $8500.00. |
The updates are to these pre-production units ('beta' versions) which were built late last year, to bring them up to date with the production units. The updates are related to the OptiMains unit and a couple of other small items. The production units are not affected at all, and there is no need to be concerned. The designs are very mature, certainly not a work in progress. AMR is taking a very conservative approach and making sure everything is fully addressed. They burn in every unit for 48 hours, taking measurements all along the way to ensure specified performance and utter reliability. I was told the first production run will ship this week. Brian Walsh dealer |