Performance from the DVD player was very impressive with near faultless upscalling to 1080p but, again, given the price of the system, surely it should also be capable of playing Blu-ray discs?
Aluminium speaker enclosures bolster the sonic delivery
My recent experiences with the DS9000 suggested that the folks at the Philips sound quality department have been eating three Shredded Wheat for breakfast recently and, true to form, the MCI900 produces a highly impressive noise. Some of this is down to the 24-bit DAC but most of the impact comes courtesy of the SoundSphere speakers.
Each speaker enclosure is made from a single piece of 18mm thick extruded aluminum, while the 25mm tweeter sits atop a sonically inert arm, thus hovering above the angled 127mm woofer. The net result is an extremely open and broad sound with very impressive definition, especially in the upper ranges.
This not only infuses your music with plenty of detail and space but also pays real dividends when listening to movie soundtracks, which are projected with a startling amount of atmosphere and clarity. It's loud too, far louder than the rated output would suggest and things never get ragged even when turned all the way up to 11.
With RCA audio inputs as well as outputs the MCi900 can be used as the day-to-day sound system for your telly, making it an interesting alternative to the usual 5.1 systems most lounges are cluttered up with these days.
COMMENTS
"....bundled an iPod dock instead."
What? You mean pay the Apple dock tax, whack the price up and make it useless to everyone who hasn't gone the proprietary and locked in route all at once? Not to mention the idiocy inherent in providing fairly comprehensive codec support and then tying it to a device that, er, doesn't.
Why would they want to do that? Is there a medical name for this particular insanity?
I fully agree that the lack of BD gives it the unmistakable stench of FAIL though. Not quite so much as the fact that for a shade more cash you could get a BD player, streaming meejah wossname and a surround system that'll hand its arse to it on a plate sonically does though.
All bark and no balls?
Looks like you're paying for looks and gimos over performance. If you buy serious audio equipment you don't get the main drive and tweeter pointing in different directions. Granted, if you're into hi-fi you only need 2 speakers but rolling in the widgets makes it look like it should be 5.1 at least, of for £1000 you should be looking at 7.1.
Suppose it's ok for rich folks that want to drop a thaasand-notes on something to swank off in front of their mates and have to replace in a couple of years because DVD had been replaced with blu-ray .... normal folk however will invest in audio equipment that will sound good and last for years to link up to a desktop which has easily upgradable parts. Then the lack of blu-ray wouldn't be an issue.
Another self-fellating toy for the ipad generation. All style, no substance.
Re : +2
I'd have to agree with the AC - although in more strident terms...
A stereo HiFi with a DVD player and a teeny, tiny hard-drive for £1,000 ? The sound coming out of it must be absolutely stunning to warrant a 70% appraisal surely... is it _really_ that impressive ?.. you didn't sound like it was...
Funkiness and sound quality aside
the speakers look like drinking fountains
+2
My only concern is that for the price it doesn't support Blu-ray discs, lacks an iPod dock and won't play DivX video files (just discs), all features I'd like to see before I parted with a thousand notes. (and is not a 5.1/7.1 capable theatre system)
Any news on wifi streaming from a media server/NAS? or web capabilities iPlayer skyPlayer etc... and 160GB is just plain wrong.. (do they still make them that small? must be using stock backlog) 1TB drives are £60 these days thats 6% of cost, and I dont see the other 94%.
Otherwise the speakers are nice, but not £1000 nice.
