Arcam AVR390 / AVR550 / AVR850 including Dirac Live®

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If you like what Dirac does with your room, that’s great, and even better if you like Arcam on the end of it, nowt wrong with that if it does it for you.

The thing for me is the charging extra for extra speakers, that’s just bizarre. And then to say it includes things like being able to adjust crossovers here and there for particular speakers, just bizarre again.

Are they really aware of how this tech has now moved on or just ignorant and expectant that their customer will pay the extra premium. I think next year will see Arcam lose customer base.

I think they have already lost a part of their user base with the all the crap they have put their customers through with the FMJ AVR's.

Whilst I agree charging extra for what on most AVR's is standard is taking the Michael I think if you go & buy a £5000 AVR & don't do your research as to what's on the market in terms of competition & what the product offers you are also in part to blame.

They really are pushing the brand & using the heritage/reputation they built up over the last 30 years to sell more product but they would not be the first company to do that either.

What grinds my gears more than that is the way they are treating their existing customer base by leaving them with bugs in the latest firmware & taking over eight months to fix them whilst stringing them along with the promise that fixes are coming but nothing has materialized.

Then to release another line before issuing the fixes was just rubbing salt in the wound to be honest.

Also all the crap we had to go through get the bass management issue fixed when we were told flat out that there was no issue.

I am only looking into the AVR30 to see what's new & if they have delivered on their promises. If they are playing the same game they have been with their customers being beta testers & stringing them along with hopes & promises I will pass on that one.
 
Arcam's typical response to bug reports is that "you must be doing something wrong" or "it's the first we have heard of it", when you know that it's not true as other Forum members have reported the same bugs.

Now be fair Arcam are not alone in doing this many other C.o's do the same thing LG, Sony,Panasonic have all done the same thing it's the modern way. Sky had a fault a while ago with HDD's failing in some PVR's there was a huge thread about it in Sky's very own self hosted customer support forum. but when ever a customer contacted support he/she was told "not had any other reports. if the caller told the C/S rep about the forum they were told "oh we are not allowed to access that here". Never admit to a problem, try to shunt it over to someone else - it's the modern way.

As for "you must be doing something wrong" sometimes that is true, user error is the cause of the problem. a very old phrase comes to mind "RFM"

It is the sort of thing that the tech press would have been all over years ago - but since the tech writers enjoy plenty of freebies now they are often not keen on really getting on the case when faults are found.

Tech reporting is very weak now. about 18 months ago Panasonic released a range of Tv's without Dolby Vision. In an interview when asked about why there was no DV support in the sets the Panasonic rep said "our sets are so good we don't need it" a fair answer. but 1 year later the next range had DV support. so there was a good question, why the complete change around were the new sets less good than the last so needed DV or was DV left out for some other reason. A great story for the tech press to push for answers. - nothing was published
 
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Charging the customer an extra premium for additional speakers is an insult in itself.
Not sure I understand your point. Are you talking about the extra charge for the Dirac tier 1 and 2 bass management for dual subs? If so, I suspect that will be the case for most manufacturers. NAD charge extra to get the full Dirac that Arcam provide for free in the FMJ line.
 
Does someone have the link to the latest Dirac software download please? I think the last one I used was v2.1. Thanks.
 
18 months ago Panasonic released a range of Tv's without Dolby Vision. In an interview when asked about why there was no DV support in the sets the Panasonic rep said "our sets are so good we don't need it" a fair answer. but 1 year later the next range had DV support. so there was a good question, why the complete change around were the new sets less good than the last so needed DV or was DV left out for some other reason. A great story for the tech press to push for answers. - nothing was published
We have exactly the same scenario here. The FMJs couldn't possibly have WiFi or bluetooth because they were the absolute pinnacle of sound quality & such wireless shenanigans would introduce noise & distortion.

Welcome to the new improved HDA range with WiFi & bluetooth...
 
As far as I am aware my only other choice for an AVR with Dirac is the NAD?

Everything else with Dirac is silly money as far as I am aware, the Monoprice HTP-1 but that's only a processor.
What do you class as 'silly money'?

There are a few options, including Emotiva (coming soon on new range :facepalm:), Storm, Lexicon or JBL (rebadged Arcams).
 
We have exactly the same scenario here. The FMJs couldn't possibly have WiFi or bluetooth because they were the absolute pinnacle of sound quality & such wireless shenanigans would introduce noise & distortion.

Welcome to the new improved HDA range with WiFi & bluetooth...

And will the tech press get on this very good point ? guess not - to many freebies to think about
 
What do you class as 'silly money'?

There are a few options, including Emotiva (coming soon on new range :facepalm:), Storm, Lexicon or JBL (rebadged Arcams).

I wont touch Emotiva with a barge pole for obvious reasons :D & I would think the Storm, Lexicon or JBL will offer much the same as the Arcam seeing as you said they are all just rebadged.

Will be interesting how they are all priced compared to one another.
 
And will the tech press get on this very good point ? guess not - to many freebies to think about

& the fact that if you say anything negative you are not getting any more product to review or invites to booths & events.
 
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I wont touch Emotiva with a barge pole for obvious reasons :D & I would think the Storm, Lexicon or JBL will offer much the same as the Arcam seeing as you said they are all just rebadged.

Will be interesting how they are all priced compared to one another.
The new Emos had potential, but their inability to deliver on time is farsical. Their power amps are great vfm though.

Storm isn't a badged Arcam, just the other two I mentioned.
 
Well how far has the tech press sunk since the 70's? "Tape recording" was a UK mag for enthusiasts it was on wide sale in the high st. A US site has a load of vintage mags as PDF's inc UK ones


Have a look at the review of the Grundig tape recorder a lot of real info there.

The whole mag makes a good read

It was the same story with Hifi kit reviews back then real performance info not silly words like "vail lifting" or "ink black sound" just good honest tech reviews. The mag "Hifi news" was a good one for this but so far I have never found vintage copies on line.
 
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I think the main point is hilighting features that are the norm for a lot of other manufacturers and then charging the customer a surcharge if they have extra speakers. That’s something that a lot of their competition don’t do.

Hi,

if you refer to the new Arcam series they highlight features that are NOT offered by a lot of other manufacturers... but I'm afraid that I cannot detail the advanced Dirac Bass Management here because I work for Dirac Research and I don't want to break this forum's rules, sorry :(
 
I have got to ask, you say you work for Dirac, a lot of people here are interested in Dirac Bass Management your posting reads like your are not under a NDA but rather you are not allowed to post 'cos the owner/s of this forum don't want to let you. any idea why this is, have you upset them?
 
I have got to ask, you say you work for Dirac, a lot of people here are interested in Dirac Bass Management your posting reads like your are not under a NDA but rather you are not allowed to post 'cos the owner/s of this forum don't want to let you. any idea why this is, have you upset them?

No problems at all with the owner/s of this Forum that I appreciate, and maybe I'm overly cautious... I refer to rule 7:

7- members who own, operate, represent or who are affiliated with a commercial enterprise or competing website must not submit messages which reference that organisation in any way unless they are advertisers on AVForums. This includes promoting and providing support for that organisation.
 
nice, put advertising revenue before helpful information. your input could be very helpful to members here. maybe the owner of this forum could explain why it would seem you are barred form helping others.
 
I have got to ask, you say you work for Dirac, a lot of people here are interested in Dirac Bass Management your posting reads like your are not under a NDA but rather you are not allowed to post 'cos the owner/s of this forum don't want to let you. any idea why this is, have you upset them?
No problems at all with the owner/s of this Forum that I appreciate, and maybe I'm overly cautious... I refer to rule 7:

7- members who own, operate, represent or who are affiliated with a commercial enterprise or competing website must not submit messages which reference that organisation in any way unless they are advertisers on AVForums. This includes promoting and providing support for that organisation.
It's a fair rule if you think about it logically. If commercial organisations or people that work for them were allowed to post with direct reference to that firm then the Forum would be bogged down with spam, for want of a better world. It is after all a Forum for the enthusiast but manufacturers' advertisement is an important part of being able to run it on a free to all basis.
 
nice, put advertising revenue before helpful information.

I didn't mean to be critical at all, the same policy is applied by several other fora
 
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Basically you have to pay as they consider it advertising.
Well... the border between providing useful info and advertising is blurred so I understand their position
 
This isn't the right place to discuss Forum policy so can we draw a line under it please.
 
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