-Well, this late model Music Hall Maverick has come into my home for audition.
-This is the later version, called the Mkii, I think!?!!
-The serial number of the Mkii starts with 060, instead of 030, I have determined by web searching.
-I only have one SACD disk, but lots of 16 bit disks, and this player plays them all, even my computer burned disks.
-Another SACD disk is due here today, also a sampler disk.
-I find this player nice sounding on redbook disks, and terrific on an SACD.
-The output op amps are a pair of OPA2604's. Going to a pair of OPA2134's or 4 OPA627BP's brightens up this players sound, with better detail, but listening on a pair of Klipsch LaScalas I found the originals just right, for my liking. Your speakers and hearing will dictate which op amp you prefer. Just know you have this option with this player, as these chips are "socketed".
-I do like the sound and imaging of this player, especially with a SACD.

There are enough choices to model the sound to match the intent of the artist and / or engineer. It is a solid player and it lends itself in a friendly way for upgrading and soldering (If that is the way you like to do things) . Black Gate capacitors are a very nice improvement in most players.
I feel like I got my monies worth for this product.

It is a bit slow at start up and I.D.
The solid cabinetry lost credibility when the sticky tape let the outer CD drawer chunk fall of after it was knocked sideways.
Heavy build does not equate to quality sound. The Linn Genki that I owned before this was so light I almost threw it over my head and out the window, it was so light. But the sound was top notch.
I am not as impressed with the remote, I would opt for a nice ergonomic over billet aluminum. But I am handicapped so I may not count.

I have not had ant of the issues that I have heard from the top 5 'philes.
The only issue that I experienced is that the power supply setting that I had selected on my Power Plant, P-300. A tweak of the PP-300 settings and all was happy.
This player has a good convincing sound without adding those tripping it the out door effects that many players exhibit. Much like the comparing a real sounding pair of headphones compared to those many that put your head in outer space for the music. I can find many comments that I can state about many players. This player has gotten out of the way and played the music without hoopla or lethargy

Customer Service

I have had very good replies for the company, two directly from the owner himself.

Similar Products Used:

Linn Genki, NAD S-500, Cary, Rotel, Sony SD1, Krell.

Open easy rhythmn, great mids, especially vocal, clear, well defined bass. Solid transport.

Quirky.

I'd say a software upgrade would cure all that's wrong - this is a great unit but needs the bugs ironed out.

Purchased a modified Maverick with upgraded OP amps - smoother more extended midrange and bass.

I have this in my system with ELAC Dolce Vita speakers powered by a 50wpc AI integrated tube amp with KT88's and PNF Audio speaker and power cables.

The playback of redbook CD's is outstanding, jury is out on the upsampling, and I'm still not convinced by SACD. I also get a 'hum-hum' sound on SACD at higher volume.

The unit has performed well, although it does have it's quirks - such as 'undisk' and takes time to read some disks - but nothing that makes me want to get rid of it.

Customer Service

Talk to Lou at Underground Audio.

Excellent prices, knowledgable and fantastic service. www.undergroundaudio.org

Similar Products Used:

Quad 99 CDP

When working correctly, the Maverick produces great sound playing either red book or super audio. Its looks are superior, in my opinion.

Very poor functional reliability. Where is the value in the $1,500 price? Quality components and build are not apparent. I believe the Maverick was definitely not worth the money I paid.

The Maverick CD/SACD player looks very impressive and matches up well with the Music Hall Mambo Class A amplifier in my living room. But looks are deceiving. The Maverick has had a number of defects that go right to issue of quality in high end audio. Over the time I have had it, the Maverick has on at least a half-dozen occasions suddenly stopped playing program material and has sent a LOUD hissing noise to the Magnaplanar 1.6qr's that complete my system. Additionally, and more frequently, the Maverick has emitted a loud electric hum when playing certain cd's. The hum or rumble was audible over the program and lasted for as long as 4 to 5 minutes before fading. Unlike the loud white noise, the hum was consistent and repeatable. I emailed Music Hall and requested advice, but they never responded. My dealer initially acted surprised, but eventually admitted there were "issues" with early Mavericks. It required a week's time and a second call from the dealer before the authorized repair person returned my message and gave me directions to his shop. From my home to his shop involved a 70-mile, one-way trip over 3 Los Angeles area freeways. When I got there, he was courteous, but noncommittal. He took a check for $60 and generously loaned me a Jolida tube-based CD player to use while mine remained with him. Later he called to say he could not reproduce the hiss, but thought he had a fix for it anyway. He had observed the loud hum on startup and advised he could fix it too for $200. I gave him the go ahead and returned the next day with one of my discs that elicited the hum. Hey. No hum. I have played the Maverick intensively since I got it back and the hum has not reappeared. Neither has the white noise. But last night the Maverick refused to read one of my SACD's and played another only with constant skipping. Although it was Sunday evening, I called the repairer and explained the situation. He stated that it sounded like a new board was needed and he would install one for free. He offered the opinion that super audio was too complex and led to many similiar problems across the industry. He strongly advised that I stay away from SA. I did not tell him I just ordered the complete set of Beethoven's symphonies in super audio.

Customer Service

I was surprised that no one at Music Hall contacted me. After all, they list their email address on their web site. My email was not rude or insulting and actually was complimentary overall. I was not happy with my dealer's professed suprise when I said I had a problem. It was only after I told him I had seen similiar complaints on the internet that he later admitted that the Maverick had "issues." The repair guy gets the prize for courtesy, candidness, and advice. I just wish his shop did not require a 140-mile round trip.

Similar Products Used:

Jolida, Technics, Aiwa

Sound Quality (Produces clean, integrated sound with good timing,decent imagery, and good insight). High quality remote control. Nice to look at.

Takes too long to read disks. Does not recognise many discs. Transport could be quieter. Strange noises spring up once in a while.

I purchased this as a DEMO Unit. This is a product with tremendous potential. The sound quailty is quite impressive. The sound is clean and tight, with decent imagery and body. The sound-staging is good (though not outstanding) for its price category. Playback on normal CD's are outstanding. Upsampling produces a slightly different though not better (in my opinion) sound.SACD Playerback produces a richer, more "analog" sounding playback. Quite good. In spite of its solid build quality, I don't think that this player has been fully developed. The Transport is not the quietest device around. Certainly for a $1500 player, you expect less noise. It takes forever (well at least 10 seconds) to regognise a disk. In some cases, it refuse to acknowlegde the presence of a disk. For me this means that four of my favourite CD's (Bill Evan, Charles Mingus, Alecia Keys, and Creed) have to be listened to in my car. It is really quite annoying. Also recently I started hearing a strange vibrating noise when player CD's. Its quite unnerving. I am still trying to figure out what that is about. So in general, this player is a mixed bag. When it decides to read the disks it produces great sound for the price. However, for the price, you expect better consistency and reliability.

Similar Products Used:

Creek CD53, Naim CD5, Sony SACD players, Rotel CD players.

Looks good as a furniture piece as long as you don't plan on plugging it in or turning it on.

Absolutely everything - sound, quality, ease of use, etc., etc.

This has got to be the worse CD player that I ever had the displeasure in using. Where should I start? Are there even enough words or profanity one can use in describing this "thing" that Music Hall tries to pass off as a CD player? Ok, lets begin with the sound. On upsampled mode, the sound was way too soft and warm. In other words, it was relatively dull sounding with dynamic passages subdued to a fairly large extent. When upsampling was turned off, the CD player actually sounded better but was a bit on the bright and sterile side. The redbook sound was more focused and detailed than its upsampled mode. However, whether it be in regular CD mode or in upsampling mode, it was not much of an improvement over my cheapo CD player, $300 Marantz CC3000, that it replaced, and was inferior to my $200 Sony CD player that I still had. Unfortunately, the problems with this CD player doesn't stop with the above mediocre sound reproduction. Upon start up, the CD player makes a fairly loud, extended whining sound. Correspondence with Roy Hall, of Music Hall, ensured me that this was normal. Huh? You got to be cosmically kidding me. It sounds like someone is torturing a cat in the back alley and for a fairly lengthy time too. Next irritation is that it takes forever for the CD player to read the disc. Often enough, the CD player is unable to read the disc and one has to reload the CD a number of times before it is read. And this is in reading redbook CDs purchased from the store and not copied CD-R discs either. Once, I had to shut the power off and reload the disc before it could be read. A couple of times, I could not switch from one song to another even though it played a few songs already. Somehow, the CD player lost its ability to read the disc. Again, I had to eject and reload the disc. The next headache with this player is that I often had to press the buttons more than once before the CD player reacted. It hardly ever works if the button(s) is only pressed once. Although the remote is made of aluminum and seems quite sturdy and attractive, it is a bit on the heavy side to be holding for any extended period of time. Also, one has to be aware that if you lose the remote, you can no longer switch between SACD and regular CD mode. The display is a complete joke. Nothing is legible from more than a couple of feet away. There is no music calender or selection of various time displays (eg. no time remaining display option). The single light is way too bright. Due to the upsampling purple light being composed of separate blue and red LEDs, the colour will change, from purple to red to blue, if you move around in your seat. Quite irritating especially if you are trying to concentrate on the music or lack-of on this CD player. The final straw with this CD player was when it played back a couple of CDs with a muted gap in certain music passages. One CD was Norah Jones' Come Away with Me, a CD that never caused my any problems before. When I took the player back to the dealer, I tried the same CD on another Maverick player with the same results - a dark, muted gap on certain songs. The Norah Jones' CD did not cause any of these problems on any of the other NON-Maverick CD players that I tried at the store. I finally ended up returning the Maverick and purchased a discontinued Arcam CD92 player for about the same price. The Arcam's sound blew away both the Maverick's upsampling and redbook CD music playback. Also, there was no problems, weird noises, etc. with the Arcam. Only problem, was that I got into the habit of pressing any button 2 or 3 times which drove the Arcam CD player crazy. Gees, I wonder where I picked up that bad habit?

Similar Products Used:

Arcam CD92, Marantz CC3000, Sony CDP-C345. And auditioned way too many to bother mentioning.

EXCELLENT upsampled CD replay, coupled with great stereo SACD capability, all in a beautiful & solid chassis.

Occasional major problems: reading discs, crazy sudden white noise mid-track, etc. (Usually cured by cycling power, but YIKES...) Also, display lights are VERY bright (covered with tape in my bedroom). And the digital coax on my player arrived DOA (not that I really need it).

This is a *great* CD player in its own right, easily besting NAD, Rotel, Rega, Denon, and at least the non-upsampling entry-level offerings from Arcam (even without the mod). While professional reviewers have diagreed on this point, I find the sound clearly superior with upsampling engaged, and this was true with or without the Underwood modifications. The fact that this unit also does a great job playing stereo SACDs puts it over the top, compared to the competition, in my book. I know of no other player that can compete with this unit at the asking price (and beyond). Note that the price I paid is for the Level-1 modified unit from Underwood HiFi. I believe the list price for the stock unit (which already impressed me immensely in a local hi-fi shop) is still only $1495, with even lower street prices. However, some scary problems with my unit do cause it to receive a less than perfect score here. First, my digital coax never worked; I could probably have it repaired under warranty, but the shipping costs don't seem worthwhile, given that I (and most users) will likely never use it (given the great DAC & analog output stage of this player, esp. after modification). Second, the unit sometimes has difficulty reading discs, and the transport occasionally makes some horrible grinding noises even when the disc can be read; both of these issues have thus far been cured by cycling the power, luckily, though. Third, on more than one occasion I have been startled mid-track by sudden, loud, continuous white noise, as if one were playing a DTS disc without a proper decoder; this is really awful, and perhaps is somehow related to the upsampling circuitry (which I cannot live without) but thankfully it has thus far been resolved by skipping to the next track... So a qualified recommendation then. The quality control problems with the software and digital stage bear warning. But since the unit works *superbly* 99% of the time, I remain a (mostly) satisfied customer, with no wishes for further upgrades (for a change).

Similar Products Used:

Arcam CD73T, Denon DVD-2900 (with & without Underwood mod), Denon DVD-2200, NAD C541, ...