Have your say & ask the experts

It has been a very vocal minority who have reported problems.

Cyrus's statement said, iirc, that the system is optimised for discs in better condition, not deliberately intolerant of damaged discs - there is a substantial difference (your spin on it is just the sort of comment that provoked my post above). Having looked at the thread, that was a second hand report in itself by someone who didn't trust his own memory!

ffiish:

It has been a very vocal minority who have reported problems.

Cyrus's statement said, iirc, that the system is optimised for discs in better condition, not deliberately intolerant of damaged discs - there is a substantial difference (your spin on it is just the sort of comment that provoked my post above). Having looked at the thread, that was a second hand report in itself by someone who didn't trust his own memory!

a) I find the difference between "optimised for good discs" and "less tolerant of bad discs" less substantial than you and b) the suggestion that people complaining of disc problems somehow have an anti-Cyrus agenda is to me a little.......disturbing

Stop press - we've talked to Cyrus at some depth (and even been to see some players being made) and will be posting up a story shortly.

But in brief, it seems far less of an issue than you'd think from the coverage it's got (in terms of the actual number of players potentially affected), and there is/are fixes already being implemented in the new models coming off the production line. And an easy firmware upgrade for the tiny numbers of players likely to be affected. More shortly...

So it *is* a problem then?

Nope, it's a potential problem with a batch from the first production run (which, incidentally, is the run our three samples and all the other magazine review models came from). More soon - give us a chance to bloomin' write the thing!

Will you retest? I know I'm playing devil's advocate here but I'm slightly disappointed by this - from what has been said so far about these players, it seems that Cyrus got something absolutely right, and personally I'd rather they stuck with it than deal with the odd minority of poorly-made or -treated discs. If I spent a grand on a player that wouldn't play Moving Pictures, I'd sure as hell buy another copy of the disc if the sonic benefits were as good as is being said, rather than have Cyrus dicking about with the software to fix a problem with 5% of my disks. It almost raises the question as to where we would be if manufacturers hadn't been 'deoptimising' their players for the last 20 years.........

Now if only they would build full-width players with great knobs.

Maybe I'm unusual, but if I was to encounter a problem with my player, would I mention it? Yes, of course I would. Would I go on and on in derogatory terms? No.

So far on this forum we've had about 5 people who have had problems with the player (most of whom have taken a sensible approach to posting), plus a load of bile from people who haven't even touched the player, let alone played it, or bought it. Cyrus claim to have shipped >1000 units. If the problems were widespread, I would expect forums like this one, which are frequented by dealers as well as consumers, to be swamped. As it is, they are not. Therefore pondering whether the few people who are going on and on have an agenda doesn't seem too disturbing to me.

As for the semantic difference, we'll have to agree to disagree - to me, your version is a prime example of doublespeak; intentionally disparaging when the truth is somewhat different. Gordon Brown could perhaps do with your services at the moment.

Anyway, my player works, and works better than anything else I've heard at the price. If it stops working I'll be sure to let you know.

I wasn't aware of having been disparaging about it, as my subsequent post might have made clear - I personally think that whatever they've done is to be encouraged, not pilloried.

Interesting way of telling people not to be disparaging, though (makes note).

JohnDuncan:

I wasn't aware of having been disparaging about it, as my subsequent post might have made clear - I personally think that whatever they've done is to be encouraged, not pilloried.

 

I hadn't read that when I posted, and when I did I did rethink the post I'd just made. Apologies if my words sounded strong, I just found the tone to be in the manner of some of the other posts on the subject.

Must do some proper work now...

Oh, and I agree with you about the knobs. Not about the width though

They did, but apology accepted sincerely. I don't take it back about them being ugly though

thanks for the info Clare.

I'v had mine for 5 days now, started listning to it proper yesterday after leaving it playing for 3 days.  Its simply brilliant, miles ahead of my old MF A3.5.  Plugged in a my dads MF CD5.5 which I love(d), and I just cant enjoy it now I'v heard the 8 SEs presentation of music.  Vocals especially, I am impressed with - so smooth and real sounding like I have never heard in this price range.

Although, I must admit that I have also been having a few problems with CDs being read.  I have tried about 20 discs over the past few days, 8 of which I have to wait for them to be ejected with 'Disc Error' then re-insert them before they will play.  It wont play 1 disc full stop and its absolutley mint.  I have tried a few CD-Rs and had no problems with those.  I have spoke to Cyrus and they seemed supprised to hear that I had these issues as mine was one of the 'new batch' and shouldnt have the probs that the early ones had.  Im giving it another few days to see if anything changes.

Overall though, sonically its brilliant, cant fault it at all, feels like exceptional value for money (especially gettin 10% off!) 

ffiish:

I'm beginning to wonder whether the people propagating these stories are:

a) employees of a rival;

b) people with some random aversion to the company or its products;

c) people who are only playing counterfeit and copied discs;

d) cack-handed at putting CDs in; or

e) a combination of the above.

Nonsense. I can only speak for myself but NONE of your list above applies.

To refresh; I bought a CD8se 17 July and soon found it to be faulty, it having disc load failures due to disc diameter, even though the discs conformed to Red-Book standard. The details of which you will probably already have read here. 4 August I returned to my dealer to exchange the faulty unit for a new replacement, (in the box I included a couple of my discs for Cyrus to experiment with when they got the unit back - Incidentally, I haven't yet had those discs returned, so I need to chase them up). It didn't take long for Cyrus to CONFIRM my diagnosis of the problems with the first unit.

I got the replacement unit home to find that it too was faulty! Not only did it have the precise same disc load issue as the first unit due to disc diameter, it also had another issue whereby the unit would not accept a disc, displaying "Disk error" and ejecting every single one without exception!

Cyrus agreed to exchange the unit back for the original unit which had now been repaired. A new transport mechanism had been fitted, the unit tested, and was claimed to be WORKING PERFECTLY. The exchange was done via courier at their expense 7 August. Don't forget I'd already made TWO round trips of 140 miles to my dealer, and with fuel prices the way they are, it's cost me a lot of money to deal with this, not to mention my time, effort and inconvenience!

Can you imagine my dismay upon trying the "repaired" and "working perfectly" unit, to find that it couldn't play CD-R's? I had Cyrus collect the unit and took a refund from the dealer! Yes, Cyrus were apologetic, I should think so too, don't you?

Now, it's VERY clear to me that Cyrus has operational issues at the factory that would allow such a run of events. If these units are passing through the test procedures and finding their way to end-users, then there HAS to be something seriously wrong with their test procedures? However, Clare Newsome has posted this Stop press at the bottom of page 5. If there ARE fixes being implemented, then clearly there WERE issues that required fixing! Of course Cyrus will have prepared for a visit by What Hi*Fi staff. I hope it means that Cyrus have tightened up their operation.

This CD player is £1100, that's a LOT of money. For that kind of money I expect the CD player to load and play virtually every disc, and I don't believe I'm expecting too much. I also expect a VERY high quality of service from the manufacturer, again when you're spending this kind of money that is not asking too much in my opinion.

Believe me, I really DO have great admiration for Cyrus. They've spent a lot of time, effort and money to design their own high quality transport mechanism for audio CD replay. It's OBVIOUS when listening to the 8se that this effort has been repaid with a wonderful sounding product. Now if they can just iron out the operational issues at the factory, all will be well .