In the DV137, Arcam finally has a full-on 'universal' player that can cope with just about any disc type you can throw at it, apart from HD DVD, Blu-ray and DVD-RAM.
It also has the technical prowess to deliver stunning picture and sound quality, thanks to high-performance onboard audio and video processing and video scaling, along with a rich variety of features designed to allow the player to sit happily in multiroom systems.
From the start of the DVD era, Arcam has been one of the very few manufacturers to design and build their own DVD players from the ground up. This is a costly and difficult enterprise that in the early days produced high-performance hardware, but with fairly mundane feature sets and at relatively high prices.
Few such criticisms could be levelled at the DV137, but as usual Arcam hides its light under a bushel. Only 'Arcamoraks' will be able to tell the DV137 apart from previous Arcam DiVA disc players just by looking, though the rear panel is gratifyingly well endowed.
Well endowed
The day we found out about the DV137, the first ever SACD-compatible Arcam player, was the very same day Naim Audio announced that it would put no further effort into DVD-Audio. But the apparent shift of direction is not quite 180 degrees in either case. Naim will continue to sell their existing DVD-Audio players.
Also, when first demonstrated to the press, the Arcam DV137 was a full multichannel SACD player, but there were problems that led to audible distortion. So, the specifications have now been throttled back so that the player now plays SACDs in stereo only.
Arcam intends to reinstate multichannel SACD if a fix can be found, in which case it will be made available to existing owners as a firmware upgrade, but no promises are being made.
You may reasonably ask how - or even 'if' - this disadvantages Arcam, when so many even more costly players are also limited to playing SACD in stereo. The answer is that they are invariably dedicated stereo players, where SACD is simply a better quality alternative to CD.
Humble beginnings
The DV137 is an all-singing DVD player, which started life as a multichannel player for all major formats. It plays DVD-Video and DVD-Audio discs in multichannel; only SACD is restricted in this way. Whether you consider this a disadvantage depends on your personal pattern of use.
