Cambridge Audio DVD repairs?

[illwill]

My Cambridge Audio Azur 540D dvd player is going to have it's first birthday within a month or two, but already the digital out has basically crapped out on me (after half an hour of play signal is totally lost through the coax and mostly mangled through optical.) Since Cambridge products come with only a 90 day warranty and it's not something my dealer will fix in house I will be having to ship it back to cambridge (through my dealer) for them to fix it.

Does anyone have any experience with this? Could you give me some idea of how long it might take or how much it might cost?

The main reason i'm asking this is that i'm not sure if i really feel like dropping more than $100 repairing a $300 dvd player which other people seem to have had so many problems with that i worry that as soon as i get it back something else will crop up (this is what really bit me in the ass with my ill-fated onkyo dual-deck cdr.)

The dealer is also quite a drive from where i live and if my player will be gone for that long i will have to go back to using my toshiba for god knows how long(which is getting on 5 years old and is having trouble reading discs and making layer changes.) Frankly if i bother to make the drive out to my dealer i feel like maybe i should just bite the bullet and buy a knew (and hopefully more dependable) piece of gear.

thanks for any advice
will

[anamorphic96]

Are you seriuos ? Only a 90 day warranty ?

Man that would really scare me. I would expect this from Sony but not Cambridge. If this truly is the case thats just bad business.

Did you buy the player from an authorized dealer ?

[illwill]

yup...

actually pretty standard for optical playback devices

the sad thing is i used it while it was in effect too because the first unit i got was bad

[anamorphic96]

My new Integra DPS 6.5 universal player comes with a standard 3 year warranty and my NAD gear is two years.

If it helps Sony ES products have a 5 year warranty.

Sorry about that. That ruly bites.

The other thing thats weird is my dealer just dropped Cambridge for NAD. He was getting way to many returns and defective units. Even with the integrated amps.

[illwill]

actually the 6.5 is what i was thinking of buying as a replacement

how has your experience been with it so far?

i bought my dtr6.4 at the same time as the cambridge and absolutely love it. my dealer actually tried to convinve me to wait for the release of the dpc8.4 at the time but as it seemed like my toshiba might be on its last legs i really wanted to get a dvd player then (oops)

i should be able to do a back to back comparison of nad's and integras here so perhaps i will do that

[anamorphic96]

I love it. Works perfectly. But I have only had it two months so im not sure about the long term reliability yet.

For playing redbook CD's it sounds quite good for a DVD player. It could be the Burr Brown DAC's that help this though. SACD and DVD-A are great as well. But to be honest its my first player for hi rez formats so I may not be the best person to ask for comparisons on sound.

But the big surprise to me was the picture quality. Im not an expert but it was definitely a cleaner smoother looking picture with a more natural color compared to my old JVC.

The funny thing is I was set on getting the changer model but my dealer talked me down to this one due to better sound quality and a better transport. I probably would not have noticed but he saved me 200 bucks which was a very pleasant surprise.

To me Integra seems very consistent across the board. Its a shame more people dont know about them.

[EdwardGein]

If worse comes to worse, a sucker on Ebay will buy it from you for a fairly good price just if you list it as described. I'd try to play down the bad things but definately list the problem and make sure you put on your listing the magic words "buy as is" this way the guy who thinks he's getting a bargain when he finds how much it costs to repair won't send it back to you as a fraudulent sale. You'll be surprised at how many people pay relatively good money for broken stereo equipment on Ebay. I myself, almost bought something broken but I was advised here that it could cost so much to fix it wasn't worth it, so I'll only buy used stuff in very good or better condition on Ebay from reputable sellers.

Usually when I buy from a store I get more than a 3 month warranty. That's a bit bizarre.

[bjornb17]

If worse comes to worse, a sucker on Ebay will buy it from you for a fairly good price just if you list it as described. I'd try to play down the bad things but definately list the problem and make sure you put on your listing the magic words "buy as is" this way the guy who thinks he's getting a bargain when he finds how much it costs to repair won't send it back to you as a fraudulent sale. You'll be surprised at how many people pay relatively good money for broken stereo equipment on Ebay. I myself, almost bought something broken but I was advised here that it could cost so much to fix it wasn't worth it, so I'll only buy used stuff in very good or better condition on Ebay from reputable sellers.

Usually when I buy from a store I get more than a 3 month warranty. That's a bit bizarre.

That's very true for the most part. I've seen a lot of sites that say "working fine, but sold as is!", and then you look at the feedback later just to find out that it is indeed a broken item. Generally i could only recommend buying stuff on ebay if they allow returns without rediculous restocking fees.