Plays DVD A, SACD and HDCD

video

I have had a different experience with the 7701 than it appears most have had.

First, it is very important to set the unit up right. Doing so avoids the pops, clicks, dropped sound and other troubles people seem to be having. READ the manual first.

All three formats play with no problems except one--a few DVD A discs are having trouble being read. The same 4 or 5 for everyone and I hear a firmware fix is being made for it. The sound is very good. I have listened to DVD A and SACD at stereo stores and this seems to be as good though I don't have a direct side by side comparison. No matter, it sounds light years beyond CD. I expecially appreciate the HDCD ability. I have many HDCD already and I didn't even know it. The sound is not as good as SACD or DVD A, but still much better than CD.

Picture quality is good, but on some discs I get a flickering in the black bands area.

Yes, it is not a precision quality build unit with that fine tuned feeling, but for $300, to be able to play all three formats? I am ejoying the hell out of it.

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Panasonic

Fun, All format toy

At this price, why quibble?

The people who panned this toy obviously want it to have the build quality of $1500 machine. If, as Mike says, you set it up correctly and do some experimenting, you'll find that at 300 bucks, this is a great little bargain.

Yes, a couple of DVD-As won't play. One just needed to be re-booted (turn it off, turn it on). "American Beauty" won't run. So, don't buy it or live with it in DD5.1.

SACDs sound wonderful; everyone of them plays great, so far.

I would like internal switching: it doesn't recognize CDs or DVDs as different from DVD-As or SACDs. You have to go into the set-up and re config. Guess I'll have to wait for the $1500 model.

For the money, the features are fantastic, unavailable in any other machine at any price. Give up your elitist attitude and enjoy this fun toy!

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No other product does all this!

PRICE!, Multiple audio formats!!!! SACD, DVD-A, Progressive scan DVD video, HDCD...let's not forget karaoke!

Teensy-weensy power supply, lack of bass mgmt

So far I have had good luck with my player. In terms of audio reproduction it is great. SACD and DVD-A are fantastic! I'm very exicited about the new formats and hope it catches on soon. I can't stand to even look at my collection of CD's anymore...what a shame. In light of the situation, the 7701 does have a good DAC for CD reproduction and plays almost as well as my Conrad Johnson unit costing many times more! The video reproduction is not too bad. It's not the best, but not the worst either. Mine is sharp without any slurryness or pixelation. This piece has really made life much more fun and I want mine to last forever...that's not likely to happen so, I just hope that it doesn't wearout anytime soon. What a darn good bargain! I have always stressed the "you get what you pay for" adage, but this time I got more features and fun for the buck. Thanks APEX!

Features

Pops and snaps playing SACD's and DVD-A's, breakes up into video noise breakup on DVD's and freezes, doesn't detect audio CD's.

I have been through 3 units. All suffered pops and snaps playing SACD's and DVD-A disks. The second would not recognize audio CD's of any kind. The thrid detects everything but does not get through a DVD without breaking into video noise and the unit is frozen forcing one to turn off the unit. AXPX does not know anything about this unit but claims they are working on the problems.

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There is no similar unit

SACD, Progressive Scan, DVD-A

Doesn't play most of my SACD collection, "noise" in many of my DVD's

I don't know if DVD-A or SACD will win the format wars, so this machine seemed like a good bet, and the price is ridiculously low.

J and R did an excellent job of getting the unit to me in time for Christmas but it will be going back. I played my first SACD and it blew me away. I never heard music so good. (Through my Onkyo-898) I was thrilled and feeling like I had just won the lottery. Then came SACD #2 - one song, terrific. However, in song #2 the disk cut out with a "disk error". Same with SACD number 3. (Circuit City's in-store Sony was able to play the SACD's just fine.)

Some of my DVD's had lines running through the picture. Apex Digital's support indicated that these problems are cause by the machine being out of alignment and they asked me to return it for a replacement unit.

My opinion - if the unit works, it is a huge bargain and would get 5 stars. For me, rather than keeping UPS in business exchanging units, I will wait a few months when hopefully, Apex has its bugs worked out. If it would work as advertised, this would easily rate five stars.

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I have seen nothing similar to this machine

capable of playing numerous formats -including cd,progressive dvd-video, dvd-audio, sacd, mp-3, and jpeg, probably only player that plays all of these formats.

you cant expect a player to do each of the above formats very well when it only costs $300. dont kid yourself you are not getting a well made/machined item for this kind of money. cheap is the operative word here.

i bought this machine for one reason only-to try out dvd-audio and sacd using one player. i already have 2 dvd players and a standalone cd player -one dvd player that i use for dolby digital and the other dvd player that is an apex which is dts,region free and macrovision free.
i have an older tv so i cant use progressive scan on the 7701. i bought eagles hotel california dvd-audio and when i first played it i could not get the 6 channel mix. however i went into the menu system and turned off downmix and voila got the six channel mix. i have a denon 4800 and using the external in jacks i played hotel california, the first song and it sounded damn good to me. of course i realize alot of people prefer stero but i am all for 6 channel mixes when they are done well. i next tried a sacd single layer stero mix-Stevie Ray Vaughn Texas Flood. It sounded really good also but not as good as the dvd-audio disc. i have ordered a sacd multichannel mix and look forward to testing it. the 7701 has a much better mp3 menu than the previous apex model that i own. the discs i had all played fine. discs with jpegs also played with no problems. i played a dvd-video and it worked fine but the quality of the picture was not quite as good as my other dvd players. finally i played a regular cd and heard some disconcerting pops at the beginning but they quickly went away. for me this player will work out fine for dvd-audio and sacd purposes.

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cd/dvd-video only player cd only player cd/dvd-video & mp3 player

none

Everything

I had a big expectancy on this product,with
a little hessitation,but went ahead with the
purchase,day passed and checked the net to
anything related to Apex dvd(specially 7701)
a big mystery surrounded the release on this
unit,till the day I received it,I tested it
on dvd progressive scan,so-so Image,cannot
compare with previous unit,than I tested it
with a SACD "Earth wind and fire's Gratitude
album" played very nice,clear but frose half
way,tried it on diferent times,same
thing,than I proceded to test the DVD
Audio,it gave me only stereo respone but not
5.1 audio,than I tested regular
cd,nothing,cero,I called JandR for an
Exchange,that was it,I'm sure the technology
is there,and the company,is in its
infancy,but when they start promising more
they have to make sure their products go
through quality control before it hits our
hands,

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Panasonic RP91

plays everything

quality, quality, quality, bass management

I just got mine from JandR.com. I was very happy for about 1 hour: it plays all video CDs, even Kodak CD and just JPEG files. It plays MP3 and burned CDs. It plays SACD without bass management, but it does not play all DVD-AUDIO. I had problem with "Riding With The King B.B. King & Eric Clapton". I can see the list of the songs, but as soon as I push enter I got "DISK ERROR". I know this disk works. And this disk has 4 soundtracks: DTS, Dolby Digital, DVD-AUDIO 6 channels and DVD-AUDIO stereo. This DVD player cannot be switched what to play first DVD-AUDIO or VIDEO, only DVD-AUDIO. But anyway there is no sound at all. I will try to contact Apex for this problem. Some other problem I found, that in order to make it works I need to power off/on for the next disk to play. Picture quality is very bad compare to Toshiba 5700. It was very promissing, but looks like I have to return it...

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TOSHIBA , SONY

A veritable Swiss Army knife of features

Buggy, no obvious bass management, inferior sound and picture

All,

The long awaited Apex Digital AD-7701 arrived today. I'm sad to say that I will be soon returning it. During about one hour of testing it, I made the following notes:

1) I could not find a speaker size setting. The bass management features on this model is a mystery.

2) Rear speaker delay settings were not sufficiently small. The settings are 0, 3, 6, ..., 15 msec. I needed a 1 msec setting.

3) There is no subwoofer test tone

4) There are no settings for speaker volume (better make certain your receiver can set speaker levels in 6-channel mode)

5) There is a significant "popping" sound when the unit is turned off and on

6) There is significant hum and noise in the 6-channel mode (I tested against my Toshiba SD5700 to make certain)

7) I could find no way to access the Dolby Digital portion of a DVD-Audio disk

8) There is a noticeable interruption between tracks (my Toshiba SD5700 has the same problem, but a Toshiba SD9200 I tried at Tweeter does not)

9) The picture quality of the Apex is noticeably worse than my Toshiba SD5700 or SD5109. My wife said almost immediately "that picture looks blurry".

10) I could not rewind or fast forward inside a DVD-Audio track

11) My subjective impression was the DVD-Audio sound of the unit is "bad". I hooked up my Toshiba SD5700 and listened to the exact same material and said to myself "that sounds fantastic". I find it amazing that two DVD-Audio players could sound so different.

12) A couple times the Apex cut out inside the middle of a track. That's something I never have experienced with the SD5700 and a DVD-Audio disk.

I could continue testing this unit, but life is too short. -grin- I will be returning it to J&R Music as soon as I get the chance.

It's too bad because, given the problems I have had with the SD5700, I had hoped this might be an acceptable alternative. It's not.

OTOH, if a person wants a unit with a ton of features without spending a lot of money and isn't too picky about quality, this model may be the ticket.

George

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Toshiba SD5700, SD5109, SD2109