McIntosh MLD7020 Review
glam...@gateway.net
about it's packaging, design, and basic controls in the first section,
performance in the second section, and a comparison against the DVP-C600D
Sony DVD player in the third section, with some closing thoughts as a coda
piece. All opinions are mine and, as with all reviews, your mileage may
vary.
Basics: Packaging, Design, and Basic Controls
Packaging: This is the sturdiest packaging I've ever seen for any video
component, hell, anything I've ever purchased. A heavy duty large cardboard
box contains foam padding which contains another heavy duty cardboard box
which contains the player and remote. I've seen houses with poorer
construction.
Design and build quality: The 7020 differs from the CLD-97 upon which it is
based in that the front panel of the Elite is replaced by the glass
fluorescent-lit McIntosh front panel. There are no hidden controls as on the
97, just clearly marked buttons on the front panel. As Ivar Thorsen pointed
out the other day, you cannot turn off the lights on the display when the
7020 is in operation. This doesn't bother me, because I never did it anyway,
and from a McIntosh design standpoint, it isn't what most Mc customers want:
they want you to know what you're hearing after they spent so much money on
it (basic snob appeal, I suppose). The unit weighs in at a good 38 pounds,
so one wants to be careful about lugging it about. To say the unit is
solidly built is an understatement, though. The rear panel has two sets of
audio and video outs, two S-video outs, two digital audio outs (for CD and
PCM LD tracks) and a single coax AC-3 out. The remote is clearly Pioneer's
97 remote (one can tell by the type font of the controls, if you're familiar
with Pioneer products) relabeled with Mcintosh.
Connections are straightforward, and I'll simply talk about a couple of items
that exemplify build quality: operational noise and the disc drawer. When
one opens the drawer, what pops out is something that looks like it could
pass as a park bench, it looks that sturdy. There's nothing flimsy about
this drawer, and it provides a very deep well that makes it virtually
impossible to mis-seat a disc. Hitting play, and letting the disc spin up
causes one to look at the display to make sure that the 7020 is running
(assuming the TV isn't on) because this is the quietest disc player of any
type I have ever owned. Very phenomenal.
Performance:
Review equipment consists of this unit (obviously) with a direct S-video
connection to my 61" Sony XBR RPTV. Source material commented specifically
on includes "The Commitments", "Peter Gabriel's Secret World Tour", "The
American President" and my somewhat wacky Criterion box set of 2001. For
brevity's sake, the above titles will become acronyms henceforth. I chose
the first two because they have sections on them which I think are
particularly tough for NTSC based equipment. I've also viewed other LDs on
this machine now, and I can safely say that this, by far, is the best
represention of LD I've ever seen by an LD player.
TC: This film was chosen because of the large number of dimly lit,
smoke-filled rooms filmed that, in transition to an NTSC source, often lose
depth and definition. This holds true for most of the bar scenes, so I'm not
going to point out any in specific, as they all suffer from the same
problems. The 7020 handled such scenes with ease, producing a truly film
like image in which background figures in shadowy areas were easily
discerned. Blacks appear to be true, and their surrounding dark blues and
grays were rendered very accurately. Gone was the smearing and loss of
detail I'd become accustomed to when watching this film on disc.
PGSWT: Two chapters of this music video were of particular interest to me,
'Shaking the Tree' and 'Blood of Eden'. For those not familiar with the
disc, it is a film of Gabriel's Secret World Tour (great music, btw). In the
two cuts selected, the stage is lit almost totally in bright red, which in
the past creates some great examples of traditional NTSC problems: bleading,
smearing gobs of red obliterating boundaries of objects as they seep into
anything next to them. The 7020 was a revelation with this material, as such
problems were just about entirely eliminated. What remained (which wasn't
much, and I certainly had to be looking for it to notice it) could have been
soft focus intended by the director, or just something NTSC couldn't handle,
period, but gone were the irritations I'd had when viewing these two
chapters. As good ol' Darth would say, "Impressive, most impressive!"
TAP: Chosen because DADC did a fine job on the first side, but the second
side had a decidedly softer appearance on the old DVL-700 and CLD-909's I
have. While the second side still looked a bit softer, the 7020 did wonders
with improving the image to make it more palatable with the first side.
2001: Kinda sad that a $130 box set goes south occasionally, but two years
ago I'd noticed that the last five sides of this set had developed an odd
kind of video noise: white lines that look like dropouts, but they just kind
of stay in place and do this twinkling routine through the duration of the
disk. Would the 7020 NR cure this? Sadly, no, but it did reduce it. I
certainly wouldn't make any buying decisions on the ability of this player to
play this disc.
Other discs I've viewed or sampled reveal a consistent excellence of
performance with this player. Flesh tones are spot on, colors are deep and
saturated, it's simple to operate, looks great; in short, I'm a happy camper,
and I imagine anyone else with one would be too. I'll point out that Mike
Nydegger emailed me that his company wasn't too happy with one they had in
Switzerland (too much chroma noise), but I saw no evidence of that on my
7020.
The one nit I have about the 7020 is the a-b side flip, which takes a couple
of seconds longer that the DVL-700. No biggie, but there you are.
Not a nit, but I was asked about it in email, is how the 7020 handles still
frames for CLV and, to the best I can determine, it drops to the resolution
of a half frame. Not a problem for me, but Jeremy, you asked. Since you're
apparently local, you may want to arrange a visit so you can see for
yourself.
Overall, in surfing terms (hey, I'm a Californian, and proud of it), I'm
totally stoked by this machine!
Now, About That DVD Comparison:
Since the 7020 is now my reference LD player, and I'm putting the 700 in the
bedroom, I had to do something about a new DVD player. I purchased the
normally $900 Sony 600 DVD/CD changer for $500 at Costco after reading
several very good reviews about it. Suffice to say that it's a very nice
player with a number of cool convenience features. I wanted to compare
titles that would likely have used the same source material for their
pressings just to get a straightforward comparison between the two formats as
now domiciled in my little home. So, I chose 'True Stories' and '24 Nights'.
No 16x9 enhancement, just full screen renditions of the source material
which seemed to be the same, regardless of medium. The Sony is plugged into
a separate S-video port on the XBR, so a-b tests were easy.
Results? DVD still provided a sharper image due to those extra lines of
resolution. It wasn't a huge leap as it was with the 700, but still
noticeable on a 61" monitor. Regardless, the 7020 has re-invigorated my
interest in the LD format as a collector's medium. Just as VHS can look
pretty good on a 17" screen, those with smaller viewing monitors for their
home theater may discern no differences whatsoever between LD and DVD. One
thing's for sure: unless the DVD has something new to offer, I'll not be
replacing many LD titles henceforth.
Closing Thoughts:
I strongly recommend that, if you have an established LD collection or are
interested in building one, the 7020 is a remarkable buy at $1500 (I
certainly understand why it sold well at $3200). There aren't many left, so
get one quickly if interested. I haven't seen the X9, but can't imagine the
image produced by that unit being much better than the 7020 for NTSC source
material. The 7020 is anywhere from $900-1200 less expensive than the gray
market X9, and service is readily available here in the States for it. I'm
pleased as peaches with both units, and now can safely enjoy the best-offered
titles in both home theater optical formats. Viva la selection!
And no, I don't work for McIntosh. I'm firmly entrenched in Operations at a
dandy bio-technology company.
George Lambert
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Joe
glam...@gateway.net wrote in message <7k96ih$17e$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>I strongly recommend that, if you have an established LD collection or are
>interested in building one, the 7020 is a remarkable buy at $1500 (I
>certainly understand why it sold well at $3200). There aren't many left, so
>get one quickly if interested. I haven't seen the X9, but can't imagine the
>image produced by that unit being much better than the 7020 for NTSC source
>material. The 7020 is anywhere from $900-1200 less expensive than the gray
>market X9, and service is readily available here in the States for it. I'm
>pleased as peaches with both units, and now can safely enjoy the
best-offered
>titles in both home theater optical formats. Viva la selection!
Thanks for the detailed and informative post, George. Although I haven't
compared the two myself,
apparently Ivor has. And while, according to him, the HLD beats the Mac by a
wide margin (Really, ya gotta see it to believe it), a domestic player with
a 3-year warranty at a lower price than the HLD should be
very appealing to many LD owners. This might be the last time such a
high-quality player is available in
the US. If you're into LD but haven't bought a new player in years, you
should seriously consider this
machine.
glam...@gateway.net
"Joe" <joe.r...@gte.net> wrote:
>
> glam...@gateway.net wrote in message <7k96ih$17e$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>
> >interested in building one, the 7020 is a remarkable buy at $1500 (I
> >certainly understand why it sold well at $3200). There aren't many left, so
> >get one quickly if interested. I haven't seen the X9, but can't imagine the
> >image produced by that unit being much better than the 7020 for NTSC source
> >material. The 7020 is anywhere from $900-1200 less expensive than the gray
> >market X9, and service is readily available here in the States for it. I'm
> >pleased as peaches with both units, and now can safely enjoy the
> best-offered
> >titles in both home theater optical formats. Viva la selection!
>
> compared the two myself,
> apparently Ivor has. And while, according to him, the HLD beats the Mac by a
> wide margin (Really, ya gotta see it to believe it), a domestic player with
> a 3-year warranty at a lower price than the HLD should be
> very appealing to many LD owners. This might be the last time such a
> high-quality player is available in
> the US. If you're into LD but haven't bought a new player in years, you
> should seriously consider this
> machine.
Thanks for the response, Joe! I'd love to see an X9 in action, but thus far,
Thad hasn't invited me over. Who knows? If I'm ever back on the east coast,
maybe I can wangle an invite to see yours. As it is, I'm thoroughly
impressed by the 7020. Onwards and upwards!
Now, off to enjoy some movies...
Ivar
glam...@gateway.net wrote in message <7k9ogl$786$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>In article <nOX93.2468$Tx1....@dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net>,
> "Joe" <joe.r...@gte.net> wrote:
>>
>> glam...@gateway.net wrote in message <7k96ih$17e$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>>
are
>> >interested in building one, the 7020 is a remarkable buy at $1500 (I
>> >certainly understand why it sold well at $3200). There aren't many left,
so
>> >get one quickly if interested. I haven't seen the X9, but can't imagine
the
>> >image produced by that unit being much better than the 7020 for NTSC
source
>> >material. The 7020 is anywhere from $900-1200 less expensive than the
gray
>> >market X9, and service is readily available here in the States for it.
If you have a good relation with your Pioneer dealer, you can make him put a
request in to Pioneer to supply you with a HLD-X0 or a HLD-X9. If the local
Pioneer office is cooperative this is no problem at all. All Pioneer sales
offices have the opportunity of special ordering any product currently in
production. I know this is working, but I do not know how willing Pioneer
in the US is, it certainly works in Europe.
The only problem I see is the pricing, the price seems to get much higher
than if you buy the player from H.K. or Japan. I have seen the HLD-X9 for
sale in the US, I can not remember from which dealer for USD 5500. A good
example is the JVC HR-W5 W-VHS player which sells in the US for about USD
5000 the price from H.K. is about USD 2400. Another good example is the
CLD-99 which sold for USD 2500 ( or was it USD 2400? ), its evolved bother
which is better, the LD-S9 can be gotten from H.K. for about USD 1200.
I have had my first HLD-X0 for more than two years now. It has been very
highly used, normally one movie a night during workdays, 2 - 5 movies a
day/night during weekends. The HLD-Xxs are build to last, you have to
remember these players are Pioneer's prestige products.
>> > I'm
>> >pleased as peaches with both units, and now can safely enjoy the
>> best-offered
>> >titles in both home theater optical formats. Viva la selection!
>>
>> Thanks for the detailed and informative post, George. Although I haven't
>> compared the two myself,
>> apparently Ivor has. And while, according to him, the HLD beats the Mac
by a
>> wide margin (Really, ya gotta see it to believe it), a domestic player
with
>> a 3-year warranty at a lower price than the HLD should be
>> very appealing to many LD owners. This might be the last time such a
>> high-quality player is available in
>> the US. If you're into LD but haven't bought a new player in years, you
>> should seriously consider this
>> machine.
>
>Thanks for the response, Joe! I'd love to see an X9 in action, but thus
far,
>Thad hasn't invited me over. Who knows? If I'm ever back on the east
coast,
>maybe I can wangle an invite to see yours. As it is, I'm thoroughly
>impressed by the 7020. Onwards and upwards!
Congratulations with your 7020, I hope it will serve you well for the coming
years.
If you ever come over to Norway, you are very welcome to have a peak at the
picture I can get from one of mine HLD-X0s.
Best regards,
Ivar Vikøren.
joe_r...@merck.com
glam...@gateway.net wrote:
> Thanks for the response, Joe! I'd love to see an X9 in action, but
thus far,
> Thad hasn't invited me over. Who knows? If I'm ever back on the east
coast,
> maybe I can wangle an invite to see yours. As it is, I'm thoroughly
> impressed by the 7020.
It's really a shame that machines cabable of such exceptional video
(and audio) performance such as these were not more affordable or
accessible to most consumers earlier. Long life to both models!!
(By the way, for a real video performance test, try the BABYLON 5 disc
"Born to the Purple." This episode is immersed in soft-focused green
hues that, even on the 99, tend to smear.)
glam...@gateway.net
"Ivar" <aXvYnZeĆt@oŘnĹlAiBnCe.nDo> wrote:
> Congratulations with your 7020, I hope it will serve you well for the
coming
> years.
>
> If you ever come over to Norway, you are very welcome to have a peak
at the
> picture I can get from one of mine HLD-X0s.
>
Many thanks, Ivar, for your contributions here and in email.
If I get to Norway (always wanted to go to Scandinavia), I'll take you
up on that demo!
glam...@gateway.net
joe_r...@merck.com wrote:
> In article <7k9ogl$786$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> glam...@gateway.net wrote:
>
> > Thanks for the response, Joe! I'd love to see an X9 in action, but
> thus far,
> > Thad hasn't invited me over. Who knows? If I'm ever back on the
east
> coast,
> > maybe I can wangle an invite to see yours. As it is, I'm thoroughly
> > impressed by the 7020.
>
> It's really a shame that machines cabable of such exceptional video
> (and audio) performance such as these were not more affordable or
> accessible to most consumers earlier. Long life to both models!!
Total agreement. By the way, if you're wondering why I didn't comment
on audio performance, here's why: I've had a head cold the last couple
of weeks, and one of my ears is stuffed up. At best, I could have
produced a review relevant for those who keep a pillow strapped to the
side of their heads (not a big readership there, I'm sure.)
>
> (By the way, for a real video performance test, try the BABYLON 5 disc
> "Born to the Purple." This episode is immersed in soft-focused green
> hues that, even on the 99, tend to smear.)
Thanks for the tip...will do.
Jeremy Bond Shepherd
>
> Not a nit, but I was asked about it in email, is how the 7020 handles still
frames for CLV and, to the best I can determine, it drops to the resolution
of a half frame. Not a problem for me, but Jeremy, you asked.
Thanks for the detailed review. I'm actually concerned about how the player
handles multi-speed playback on >>> CAV <<< discs. The best design is to NOT
pass CAV frames through the field store during multi-speed so resolution is
not needlessly halved. Unfortunately, this is just what my Pioneer Elite player
does. CAV still frames look great, but as soon as you tap the multi-speed
button it goes into half-resolution fields.
CLV discs will, of course, yield only video fields during either still or
multi-speed playback on all but the super high-end industrial players. I'm
not concerned about CLV, just CAV.
Also would you mind letting me know how many speeds are available in
multi-speed (I miss 3x), and whether the remote has one or two rocker switches
to control multi-speed? The one-switch method on my Pioneer is rather awkward
to operate; older players I have owned have one switch to control direction
and one to control speed.
A thousand thanks,
- Jeremy
glam...@gateway.net
3X speed is there on the 7020, and it looks to me like CAV frames are
represented for all special effects, not fields.
Also, the remote uses two sets of buttons for controlling these
effects: 1 set of buttons handles direction (and initiates this special
effect when tapped), the other buttons control speed and also initiate
the service when tapped. A third set of buttons puts one in still frame
mode and controls the direction.
Hope that helps. If you're interested in an audition of the player and
you're in the SF Bay area, you're welcome to contact me in email to set
something up.
George Lambert
In article <7kfdg9$79l$1...@usenet49.supernews.com>,
jb...@netcom.com (Jeremy Bond Shepherd) wrote:
> In message <7k96ih$17e$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, glam...@gateway.net wrote:
> >
> > Not a nit, but I was asked about it in email, is how the 7020
handles still
> frames for CLV and, to the best I can determine, it drops to the
resolution
> of a half frame. Not a problem for me, but Jeremy, you asked.
>
John Habeeb
"...the McIntosh LV player has some
differences from the Pioneer CLD-97. We changed the Power Supply, Video
and Audio input board and modified it so it accepts data."
glam...@gateway.net
I would assume he means they added the AC-3 connection so it exports
data.
George Lambert
peter...@east.sun.com
>As promised, here's my review of the McIntosh MLD7020 LD player. I'll
>talk
...
>97, just clearly marked buttons on the front panel. As Ivar Thorsen
>pointed out the other day, you cannot turn off the lights on the
>display when the 7020 is in operation. This doesn't bother me,
>because I never did it anyway,
...
>The one nit I have about the 7020 is the a-b side flip, which takes a
>couple of seconds longer that the DVL-700. No biggie, but there you
>are.
I have one further question about automatic side transitions for
MLD7020 owners. If, as described above, the MLD7020 does not have
the "FL OFF" feature of the CLD-97 for turning off the front panel
display, what does this mean for the related ability to make the
video output for the automatic A-B side transitions completely
black? I don't really care about exactly how many seconds a side
transition takes or turning off the front panel display, but I do
prefer the picture to be completely black during automatic side
transitions. Is this possible with the MLD7020, or does it insist
on displaying a randomly chosen still frame and text like "A>B"
during an automatic side transition?
Thanks,
-- Peter
glam...@gateway.net
peter...@east.sun.com wrote:
> In article <7k96ih$17e$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, glam...@gateway.net wrote:
>
> >talk
> >97, just clearly marked buttons on the front panel. As Ivar Thorsen
> >pointed out the other day, you cannot turn off the lights on the
> >display when the 7020 is in operation. This doesn't bother me,
> >because I never did it anyway,
> >The one nit I have about the 7020 is the a-b side flip, which takes a
> >couple of seconds longer that the DVL-700. No biggie, but there you
> >are.
>
> MLD7020 owners. If, as described above, the MLD7020 does not have
> the "FL OFF" feature of the CLD-97 for turning off the front panel
> display, what does this mean for the related ability to make the
> video output for the automatic A-B side transitions completely
> black? I don't really care about exactly how many seconds a side
> transition takes or turning off the front panel display, but I do
> prefer the picture to be completely black during automatic side
> transitions. Is this possible with the MLD7020, or does it insist
> on displaying a randomly chosen still frame and text like "A>B"
> during an automatic side transition?
I haven't found a way to turn this 'feature' off. While I too prefer a
black/neutral screen for side flips, this isn't a biggie for me.