Having read a glowing review of this player in Home Cinema Choice, I decided to audition the player for myself to see how good it really was before buying it. Thanks to Audio-T in Enfield for letting me lounge in their demo room with copious amounts of volume and tea! After playing with it, I bought a silver machine and so far, I’m quite pleased with it.

What do you get for your money then? This DVD player comes with: remote control with batteries, power lead and instruction manual (with registration card and questionnaire). That’s your lot. There are no extra’s here and this is reflected in the design of the player itself too. The minimalist approach might not suit the button geeks out there, but a lot can be said for the sheer elegance of simplicity. :-)

The detailing on the costumes in R2: Shakespeare in Love has to be seen while R1: The Matrix and R2: The World is Not Enough each have so much life and clarity it’s overwhelming! R1: Blade was dark, crisp and punchy and a pure joy to watch as always. Still one of the best transfers I’ve seen with R1: Saving Private Ryan, purely captivating. R2: Human Traffic was good to watch over again and the music pounding from the speakers almost had me dancing on the carpet.

I've come across one seemingly minor problem however, and it concerns the playback of multi-angle content. Playing R2: Metallica Cunning Stunts, when the multi-angle parts appear, the icon will appear on screen for about two seconds before disappearing. There isn't an option to stop this from happening and it happens with other discs too, such as R1: Tomorrow Never Dies. I find this a little distracting since it continues to pop up during playback.

Incidentally, using manual region selection seemed to offer a slightly sharper picture than setting the player to auto, can’t quite explain it, but the colours certainly seemed a little more vibrant.

I only have one HDCD CD, Megadeth’s Cryptic Writings, so I played this and was surprised at how good it sounds. There appears to be more range in the percussion areas which made the sound more ‘real’. Drums had more bass and guitars were well reproduced.

So, how does this sterling player handle playback of MP3s? Playing back MP3s recorded onto a CD-RW really showed up the limitations of MP3 compression. Anything less than 192kbits will sound very thin and lack bass. It works however and you can have pretty much any directory structure on the CD and the DV88 will play back the music without any problems at all. There are no display options with MP3 playback however so you don’t get any fancy track titling etc. A shame, but not a major concern.

When the specification for DVD-Audio is finally sorted out, this player can be upgraded and has blanking plates on the back just waiting for new DVD-Audio socketry. Apparently this player can already sample at up to 192kHz which is the highest sampling rate according to the DVD-Audio standard.

The player set-up is straightforward enough and spread among just three screens. Apart from setting the aspect ratio, you can also specify the black level (0 or 7.5 IRE) for NTSC discs and specify the TV system to output to. Apart from Auto you can also select NTSC, PAL, PAL 60, PAL M or PAL N. There's Bitstream for DTS, DD or MPEG5.1, or PCM for 2 channel audio output.

The remote control could be more friendly. There are quite a few buttons spread along the length of the control which means that I sometimes need both hands while I'm looking for what I want. I'm sure it could be more compact and a little wider too. The control around the centre for selecting DVD menu items isn't as intuitive as it could be. I was always hitting the mute button instead of OK and sometimes hit the Open button inadvertently which meant having to load a disc in again going through all the copyright stuff. Even after a month of solid use, it's taken me a little while longer just to familiarise myself with the buttons in the dark.

The MPEG2 decoding from this player is simply awesome and uses the Vaddis III Zoran chipset. A well produced DVD really shines in the DV88 as R1: The Mummy (1999) and R1: Saving Private Ryan both clearly show. No hint of compression artefacts anywhere. The breathtaking clarity is enough to keep me glued to my screen, jaw dropped, for hours on end. One of the reasons for the top flight performance in the DV88 could be explained by the jitter clocks that are present: one for audio and one for video. Normally a CD player or DVD player would have just one jitter clock to correct any timing errors encountered with discs. The DV88 has two of them. So, what does this mean to you? Well, when checking out high end gear, look out for products that have separate digital re-clocking for audio and video signals. These allow for better signal reproduction because the error correction and timing of one circuit doesn’t affect the other. You get a signal that’s a lot more stable when it’s converted to analogue. Transferring DTS and Dolby Digital signals will also be more accurate. Multi Region Hack The DV88 is factory set to Region 2 and the official line on changing regions isn’t something that Arcam or official dealers openly talk about. Being based on the Zoran chipset, you can change regions manually via codes on the remote control. With the tray open, key in 1111, 01 – this sets region 1. 1111, 02 – this sets region 2 or 1111, 13 – this sets auto region selection. Manually selecting one region at a time for playback did seem to give slightly better video performance however. This could be something to do with the NTSC/PAL signal to the TV. Technical Details Region 2 (DIY multi-region via remote, see box out) RGB via SCART/component video; composite video; S-Video; TOSlink optical, coaxial digital audio and 2 x stereo audio out. Plays DVD, VCD, SVCD, CD, HDCD, MP3, CD-R, CD-RW Dolby Digital, DTS, MPEG 5.1, CD-PCM Conclusion Okay, so £900 may be a lot of money to spend on a DVD player, but the way I see it, if you’re in the market place for not only a top notch DVD player, but also a very capable CD player to boot, the DV88 is worthy of an audition at the very least. Not to mention that it can be upgraded to DVD-Audio once the standard has been ratified. I only have the minor quibble with the multi-angle icon mentioned earlier on which could be down to me just being me, but I reckon the good outweigh my niggles!

• Flawless video performance.
• Superb CD audio performance.
• Easy DIY region hack via remote.
• Plays MP3s.
• Upgradable to DVD-Audio.

• Remote control button layout could be improved.
  
• Multi-angle icon appears briefly onscreen.

Ease of use: 9.5/10
Easy to understand instruction manual and set-up menus. DIY region hack via remote is simple enough to execute. Though the remote control could be improved, it’s a little too long and perhaps could be wider with a more friendly layout.

Performance: 10/10
The DV88 doesn’t shirk from anything you put in it and thanks to the two jitter clocks, corrects audio and video playback giving the accuracy you can expect from a top class player.

Value for money: 10/10
It’s a little expensive compared to other players out there, however it’s easily upgradeable and has the quality Arcam are renowned for. It’s an outstanding DVD and CD player which can handle MP3 playback as well. If you match this player with a good amp and speakers, you won’t be disappointed.

Overall: 9.5/10
I would rate it higher, except the remote control could be improved and the multi-angle icon does show up briefly on-screen. Apart from these minor quirks, I reckon it’s still one of the best players available and if you’re in the market for something a little special and have the money to spend, try auditioning the Arcam DV88.

Anil Khedun