Page 1 of Lecson/LG 3350 or Alba 103

Fairly new to this dvd thing and want a player that is multi region and has good sound and picture, needs to be good with music too replacing my cd seperate. Am also looking to get the sony surround pack htk 215 do any of them match better than the other. Dvd needs to have a digital out. Anybody help
Thanks

Didn`t I read something about the Lecson behaving like the Wharfedale 750S with music CDs? Inserting a three second gap between tracks, which is particularly annoying on live albums.

The Lecson is produced by Wharfedale, so it wouldn`t surprise me. The Alba I have no experience of, but I can tell you I`m 100% pleased with my LG 3350...

Avoid the Alba 103 as there are serious limitations on the discs the machine will play - particularly does not like discs encoded with RCE from the States. (Incidentally, Argos are selling the 103 for £130 in their summer sale).

The Lecson comes replete with on-board DD/DTS decoding, although this isn`t too much of an issue if you`re buying a theatre kit anyway. CD playback is supposed to be the one area the player lets itself down on.

Which brings us to the LG3350e, which has had excellent reports here at the forum. Again this has on-board decoding, but oddly the player is not capable of outputting a CD signal out thru it`s analogue outputs. Again, for your purposes, this is not an issue as you`d be hooking up via the digital cable route anyway.

The Lecson comes with an extended warranty from Debenhams, but the LG has excellent unofficial online support from IT Troll, so if I were looking at either of these players, the 3350e would just swing it, for that reason alone.

Of course, there is no need to limit yourself to just these three - there are some other outstanding budget players out there, most noticeably the Samsung 511, again that comes with unofficial online support.

How do you envisage using the player - just for DVD, or for MP3 playback as well ?

Thanks for that, mp 3 as well as dvd

I have the LG3350E and I can heartily endorse it. Not only is it hackable via the remote for multi-region, it also plays MP3`s, and despite what people tell you, there is a hack to turn on the VCD playback function. It works perfectly to!! Picture and sound quality are both first class. I`ve also heard that it has no problems with the RCE titles, although I haven`t tried any yet.

This item was edited on Tuesday, 15th May 2001, 09:43