Player New in the August Issue of On Sound and Music, the latest take on a
Universal Player that just may be the best Single Box All Format Player
today, the McCormack UDP-1.

Take a look at http://www.onsoundandmusic.com/issue...408-UDP-1.html.

Much more at On Sound and Music, mixing the best of the High End with the
Best of Pro Sound http://www.onsoundandmusic.com.

The McCormack UDP-1 Universal Disc
"analyst" wrote in message
...

Player New in the August Issue of On Sound and Music, the latest take on a
Universal Player that just may be the best Single Box All Format Player
today, the McCormack UDP-1.

Take a look at http://www.onsoundandmusic.com/issue...408-UDP-1.html.

Much more at On Sound and Music, mixing the best of the High End with the
Best of Pro Sound http://www.onsoundandmusic.com.

If you have the time and strength of stomach, pPlease take a look at the
picture of the interior of the this *amazing* DVD player
http://www.onsoundandmusic.com/index...8-UDP-1.html&2
(Figure 3).

What I see is the transport and major circuit cards of a commodity player
(center, lower right), back-ended by MacCormack's *SOTA contributions*.
Those appear to be a power supply board and output buffer board, both
stylishly decorated with large film capacitors. Ironically, a switchmode
power supply, probably belonging to the original commodity player appears
to be standing up vertically, between the two MacCormack-sourced boards.

Perhaps someone who services a variety of mainstream DVD players could ID
the actual source of the majority of the guts of this device. They could be
from an APEX, for all I know... or maybe the Pioneer universal DVD player
that sells for under $200.

This could be one way to beat the high development costs usually associated
with manufacturing a DVD player - scrap out a good mainstream box, and
repackage
the guts with some snake-oil wrapped around it, so that high end reviewers
can feel comfortable with it. Oh, and jack up the price by a factor of say,
50?

On Thu, 5 Aug 2004 11:09:05 -0400, in rec.audio.opinion you wrote:

The McCormack UDP-1 Universal Disc
"analyst" wrote in message
...

Player New in the August Issue of On Sound and Music, the latest take on a
Universal Player that just may be the best Single Box All Format Player
today, the McCormack UDP-1.

Take a look at http://www.onsoundandmusic.com/issue...408-UDP-1.html.

Much more at On Sound and Music, mixing the best of the High End with the
Best of Pro Sound http://www.onsoundandmusic.com.

If you have the time and strength of stomach, pPlease take a look at the
picture of the interior of the this *amazing* DVD player
http://www.onsoundandmusic.com/index...8-UDP-1.html&2
(Figure 3).

What I see is the transport and major circuit cards of a commodity player
(center, lower right),

You admit that you don't know this. See below.

back-ended by MacCormack's *SOTA contributions*.
Those appear to be a power supply board and output buffer board, both
stylishly decorated with large film capacitors. Ironically, a switchmode
power supply, probably belonging to the original commodity player appears
to be standing up vertically, between the two MacCormack-sourced boards.

Perhaps someone who services a variety of mainstream DVD players could ID
the actual source of the majority of the guts of this device.

Yes, since you couldn't, but were willing to make an uniformed guess.

They could be from an APEX, for all I know... or maybe the Pioneer universal DVD player
that sells for under $200.

This could be one way to beat the high development costs usually associated
with manufacturing a DVD player - scrap out a good mainstream box, and
repackage
the guts with some snake-oil wrapped around it, so that high end reviewers
can feel comfortable with it. Oh, and jack up the price by a factor of say,
50?

So, the McCormack sells for $10,000, does it?

I assume that you've heard this unit, since you are willing to
speculate on whether it's "snake-oil wrapped". After all, the only way
to tell if it's "snake oil" is by doing a dbt, right?

Of course, you might argue that you said "could be". Well, guess what.
It could be that this unit isn't snake oil at all.

Hey, look at the size of the chip on your shoulder, Arnold! It's
growing even as we speak.

"Paul Dormer" wrote in message
...
"Arny Krueger" emitted :

This could be one way to beat the high development costs usually
associated
with manufacturing a DVD player - scrap out a good mainstream box, and
repackage the guts with some snake-oil wrapped around it

If you didn't know any better, it's almost prohibitive for any small
to medium size company *not* use *some* of the "guts" of mainstream
boxes, due to almost insurmountable hurdles (not simply relating to
costs) set in place.


--
S i g n a l @ l i n e o n e . n e t

As someone who has 'blueprinted' a consumer deck or two I can tell you that
it is no small or insignificant matter to take what is a good box, and try
to get better performance, by matching resistors, changing to more accurate
caps (not neccessarily 'designer'), or reworking a power supply for better
ripple suppression. The fact that taking care in building (or rebuilding)
costs a lot of time and money and offers only miniscule improvements, does
not in and of itself make it 'snake oil.' Those who care to pay for the
effort should certainly have the option to get it. Those that don't think it
worth the cost are free to pass it by. I cannot understand why those who
don't care about this equipment feel so strongly that they should criticize
other people's work. This is especially true in the case where the critic
has not even heard the device, but feels like he can identify sound quality
by looking at circuit cards.

Carl