mhzs 88e cd player , anyone heard one

hi, just ordered one of these players , anyone else got one or heard one , advise on valve upgrade appreciated , the unit looks really well built [ 18 kgs ] also plenty of decent components inside , any comments welcome !

 

you might wnat to chnage you user name to 'so long sucker'...

the MHZS player have received an unsurprising amount of flack.

their in house designed 24/192 dac chip that you think lives under that big box doesn't.

infact despite their claims to it being beter than anything from crystal and burr brown it is in fact burr browns cheapest 16bit dac, the one they sell for cd player boom boxes.

but all is not lost, you do get two resistors under that casing as well.

http://www.lampizator.eu/LAMPIZATOR/...HZS_CD66F.html

i'd send it back if i were you.

 

the lampizator is always a tad harsh though, he does like to slate products. He once commented that the older cyrus dad1 had nothing more than the contents of a portable CD player inside. and yet listening has shown me that its a capable machine.

Its not always the parts, its what you do with them.

however this mhzs is not a player i am able to comment on.

 

cheers , ill give it a listen and post my findings , i have a sonic frontiers sfcd-1 in my main system a decent player if a little old but should be interesting to see how the two resistors and the 16 bit dac compares ,

 

mhzs 88 valve player , 2 resistors and cheap dac

update on this unit , player arrived , unpacked from a very substantial box with quality packing , would the unit turn on ? yes no problem no noise no pops or bangs total silence , i will not review the sound of the unit until its had a few days burn in but i can say fresh from the box [ two resistors and a cheap dac } makes a very good noise indeed , mabye the chinese know somthing we dont ! as for the build quality of these units nothing short of amazing ive owned units from , theta , meridian , quad , shanling , marantz, naim to main just a few and this thing is built like a tank , if it had any of the names mentioned above printed on the front plate the list price would be 2k at least , quality phono plugs , user buttons are superb , the smoked lid for accessing the transport mech opens and closes with a very smooth movment , front plate is solid 18 mm and the unit weighs a back breaking 18 kgs , the remote would be an optional extra if sold by another manafacture very similar to a denson gizzmo solid metal unit , all user buttons funcion perfectly and have a high quality feel , same is true of the remote , placing the disc into the top loading transport and placing on the heavy magnetic puck the dics spins instantly on command from the play button , disc reading is also very good , the transport itself is superb no noise at all near silent when running , track selection again virtually instant , ill leave it there for now anyone interest in my views on the sound i will post soon , reference players will be a sonic frontiers sfcd-1 , and a quad 99 cdp , rest of the system will be amps - nuforce refrence mono amps- pre , anatek a50 intergrated , speakers - spendor s8 , proac 2,s standmounts , cables from mit - van den hull -ensemble ,

 

It does however seem to have eaten your full stop & return key

 

very good,punctuation experts as well as component experts must visit more ! these guys really know there stuff .

 

.. as well as their stuff........

 

Mick - I am very interested to know your thoughts on the sound of the player.

 

No they don't, they are a bunch of lying chinese bastards.

 

...probably no worse than the sellers over here who would hoik the price by a factor of three! I had a Doge CD player that sells rebadged for €3000 plus in Yerp that cost me a third of that plus nominal import - very good too!. The MHZS, in common with other Chi-fi is probably engineered to a price point dictated by Western margins methinks. I daresay more are sold through dealers like those Buck Rogers CD players (I can't think of the name) than out of the factory back door. I could of course... be wrong!

 

if the chinese are lying rip offs ! then why are kef , quad , audiolab just to name a few having gear made shipped back put in dealers and still making huge margins of profit , im not saying this player is anything other than it is 400 pounds worth , but if anyone can bring a current new player sold within a uk dealer for the same price that offers better build and sound quality ran in my system i will give them the player just to pull to bits and can post how shit they are after listerning ! on the other hand they could be in for a surprise , im not feeling short changed after just two days burn in and no tweaking running the player in place of the quad 99

 

my point exactly. £400 - £500 in Chinese money goes a lot further than over here in terms of bang per buck! I'm not having a dig at European or American manufacturers as they have all manner of things to consider when pricing that China does not, and their high end market will always exist, as there are customers willing to pay the premium for the best.

There are people who will only buy European, and others with more curious tastes, or those with high end aspirations but without the budget. I suspect in addition to scale of economy, that big companies outsource to china for quality reasons and things like point to point wiring, that over here we rarely seem to have the skill sets to make, unless cottage industry sized firms get mentioned. Chi-fi isn't really my thing, but there are a lot of convincing arguments for it, when some of the UK bought CD players are finding their way into reviewers reference systems!

 

I don't believe anyone is saying that the Chinese can't build quality to a price point, they cetainly can. Just that their sense of morality might well have deserted them when claiming that the cd you purchased uses an inhouse designed 24/96 dac chip that is better than anything from Crystal or BB. When in fact it contains the cheapest dac chip that BB make.

never mind the fact that the sony mech they quote a serial number for doesn't exist either and is just a fake they have knocked up themselves.

God only knows who the capacitors are made by, i bet they've never been anywhere near the people who were susposed to make them.

i don't think you can fairly draw any comparissons between uk designed kit made in managed factories with this home brew stuff.

i'm sure your boom box cd player with Tubes that add no gain only 2nd harmonic distortion sounds just perfect for the money.

 

please not the morality issue , im sure sony and burr brown would have something to say if these players made in paddy fields where claiming to use there kit and where infact fake copies or other , probably a law against it ? ive seen no disclamer from either company to state so and surely the dealer networks in the uk usa not to mention numerous ebay shops from loads other countries selling direct would need to change there advertising if it was the case , mabye someone needs to tell sony and burr brown if they dont know sure they would have there lawyers straight on it !

 

They probably will need to change their advertising. I bet they all just copy and paste whatever the manufacturer/Distributor gives them without question and possibly without reading it.

Who cares if you like it buy it if you don't then don't. But if a manufacture gets caught out by making stupid claims then thats their own problem and the people who believed the whatever claims they make. A manufacturer should get their wrists slapped. Thats why we have Trading Standards.

 

I would disagree in that I would much rather deal with a manufacturer who feels obligated to be honest in their claims. Its hard to bring any legal action against Chinese manufacturers, who frequently demonstrate a blatant disregard for trade laws - because they know they can get away with it. Not to say that all are guilty of misleading claims and double-talk, but many are. Ultimately, its about what sounds best to your ears judging on the merit of the sound and apparent build quality.

SMEogol - I think you were referring to The Shanling CD-100, which is Buck Rogers-ish. The Shanling is not too bad at all. I have an old California Audio Labs Tempest II and Carver CD490T (both also have tube analoge stages), which sound better than the Shanling however the Shanling does appeal in the sense that it looks a lot more flash. I have read on Arthur Salvatore's site that the Doge and the MHZ 88 are both decent players. Arthur Salvatore is a gifted writer but he is a bit 'out there' and I'm inclined to take what he says with a pinch of salt. I'd certainly be interested in some opinions here on the MHZ and Doge players.

 

hi, thanks totally agree with you views , my point without getting into a political debate is yes there is a risk in buying chinese goods direct without dealer back up , but with dealers comes huge mark ups on the products , yes these players are not dripping with exotic components inside, and they are guilty of pushing some marketing shpeel to make the products sound more desirable mhzs would not be the first to do this , but as you rightly say its the sound and the general quality that should be important , as ive mentioned the build is second to none at the price nothing comes close . forgive my ignorance when it comes to component lists of the inside and distortion levels i havent got a clue but do know a decent player when i hear one and up till press very little to complain about the mhzs , detailed without sounding bright , very transparent and airy . mids are great and good coherancy with the treble , voices are very natural but harden up a little at volume , bass a little loose at the moment but goes low , staging is good nice and deep but a little unfocused at times hoping this will improve and the bass will firm up during burn in . overall though there is little between it and the quad 99 , the quad certainly pushes the music out more fluidly and has a better timing and staging is firmer and more focused but again this should improve on the mhzs with burn generally these are areas that improve with burn in time on cd players ? will probably look to roll some tubes when fully burnt in . i will send you a post after a good couple weeks of constant use to let you know of anymore improvments or not mabye its packed in by then ! then ill be eating some big humble pie , will compare to the sonic frontiers sfcd-1 at the end of next week , cheers

 

are you fucking kidding me.

claiming it uses their own in house designed state of the art 24/96 dac that surpasses anything from BB and CL and then finding out it actually uses BB's cheapest chip and 3 resistors.

That's the largest and most blatant lie any audio manufacturer has been caught telling.

I doubt very much whether it would be worth anyones time trying to chase them down for any legal reason, doesn't happen in China, not un less the company doing the pursuing has polititicans in their pocket.

 

go bother someone else , chip sets are not the be all and end all in the past naim used chips used in portable syths and forgot to mention and then said that only around 20 percent of any players sound relied on the chip set used , if you have not heard the player which was the origanal post then not really interested in the views you have read on other web sites , message really is then not to believe everything thats wrote down then you wont be to disapointed if its not 100 percent true , i dont ! for the record there were loads of high end players a couple of years ago stating they were upsamperling player when infact they were just oversamperling