Page 1 of 3 players in 4 months, maybe 4

Am I just unlucky?

In August we bought a Cyberhome 512 from Richer Sounds. After 3 weeks it started playing up. It took several goes to get it to accept a disc. I took it back, but all they had at the time was the Limit 8080se. I thought that had a slightly better picture, despite being composite only and looking really cheap.

In the last month the Limit started misbehaving. It would just die during a film and had to be unplugged for a while to recover. Could be overheating I suppose. Anyway, that went back yesterday and despite some comments about me going through a few players they gave me an Acoustic Solutions 551. Better looking and more output options. However, when I tried it today it worked okay on the first disc, but after that started making a noise like a strimmer. It still plays at least some of the time, but I fear I will be returning to Richer Sounds soon.

I took the 3 year warranty so I can keep going back, but it`s a pain and the shop is an hour away.

Has anyone else had this much trouble with cheap Chinese players?

BTW We also had a Toshiba VCR die recently, 3 months out of warranty :-(

Steve

That`s extraordinarily bad luck :-(

Where do you keep your player(s) and other AV stuff? Are they well ventilated and out in the open, or are they enclosed inside a cabinet of some sort? It could well be overheating that`s causing the problem.

Mike

well i have 2 in a month ,cyberhome 512 from smiths &crown from sainsbury both crap i thought ,might try dansai next from tescos

They are sitting in a shelf unit with no doors. Sometimes they end up with DVDs and other stuff left on top, but I might try top avoid that with the AS551 as it has air holes on top (to let in dust).

The latest failure sounds like someting in the drive mechanism being out of whack. I didn`t get around to calling RS today. I won`t get over there before next week.

So do I take my money back or try another of these units? I`m tempted to pay the extra and get a Tosh.

In the end I need reliability more than ultimate AV quality.

Steve

With regard to your Toshiba`s warranty I was told by Trading Standards that doesn`t affect your statutary rights that the goods must be fit for their purpose. The warranty is just an extra supplied by the manufacturer. I`m assuming it`s for a year. Under E U law I think TV`s and videos etc are supposed to be good for about six years. I`m not completely positive about that though.
With regard to your DVD players I had an eclipse from Richer which was great for about seven months then the picture became really bad. I think that was overheating. I did notice the disks were quite hot whenever I used it. I now have a Toshiba 210e and a 110e multi region and with both of them the disks come out cool. you can get a 110 quite cheap at the moment about £149 with three dvds.
I hope this is not too long-winded.

"Under E U law I think TV`s and videos etc are supposed to be good for about six years. I`m not completely positive about that though."

AFAIK, manufacturers are simply required to ensure that spare parts etc. are available up to six years after the item is discontinued, so that it`s always possible to repair an appliance that`s less than six years old. (Most of the decent manufacturers do this anyway, of course - Philips still do spare parts for TVs that are older than I am!)

You still have to pay for repairs outside the warranty period though. It doesn`t mean that if the appliance fails within six years you can get it fixed for nowt ;-)

Mike

Get a Sony and eat the warranty you will not need it!