New Ruark cd transport - R-CD100

[Al ears]

Good news! Ruark and Arcam can share my Award for Under-Developed CD Player of 2024 now!

It makes you wonder if anyone ever actually tried one at home. Unbelievable!

I would agree as they are obviously designed to work in partnership with the likes of the R410 it would seem their QC regime is rather lacking....

 

[manicm]

Good news! Ruark and Arcam can share my Award for Under-Developed CD Player of 2024 now!

It makes you wonder if anyone ever actually tried one at home. Unbelievable!

The Arcam CD5 has been fixed via firmware - it now does gapless. On the other hand the way more expensive Emotiva CD player does not do gapless.

I agree, it's unacceptable from a testing point of view to let products slip into production like this.

 

[plastic penguin]

To be fair they are not reknown for anything vaguely hifi, if you bought a 610 why would you then want a CD transport??

Ruark used to make cracking hi-fi speakers. When I heard the Sabre III they sounded great. I preferred them over the ATC SCM11 from the era.

 

[Al ears]

Ruark used to make cracking hi-fi speakers. When I heard the Sabre III they sounded great. I preferred them over the ATC SCM11 from the era.

Indeed, however my comments were directed at what they produce today.

 

[manicm]

To be fair they are not reknown for anything vaguely hifi, if you bought a 610 why would you then want a CD transport??

The 610 requires seperate speakers, and Ruark is veering off their beaten path a bit. So why would you NOT want a CD player? Cambridge did it with the Evo? Marantz does it.

I'm dead sure some 610 buyers would buy a turntable too - a Rega with a nice wood finish plinth would not go amiss.

Your question could actually be why would anyone want a 610??? Because until now Ruark have only been making speaker playback systems, be it internet/DAB/FM radios or whatever.

They've identified a certain segment in their market who wants a bit more flexibility. So now they can choose their own speakers. And the 610 has a built-in phono stage. So again, why not a matching CDP?

 

[Al ears]

The 610 requires seperate speakers, and Ruark is veering off their beaten path a bit. So why would you NOT want a CD player? Cambridge did it with the Evo? Marantz does it.

I'm dead sure some 610 buyers would buy a turntable too - a Rega with a nice wood finish plinth would not go amiss.

Your question could actually be why would anyone want a 610??? Because until now Ruark have only been making speaker playback systems, be it internet/DAB/FM radios or whatever.

They've identified a certain segment in their market who wants a bit more flexibility. So now they can choose their own speakers. And the 610 has a built-in phono stage. So again, why not a matching CDP?

My comment was based around what the 610 actually is.
It's a streaming receiver with Bluetooth.
If going down the streaming route I could not understand why anyone would want a CD player as well. Most people into streaming are trying to get away from physical media so same goes for vinyl.
As to the quality of their inbuilt phono stage I cannot imagine as anyone likely to want to add a turntable to these things might very well already have one in the turntable they own.
Their ability to integrate their own cd transport into their system leaves me in some doubt as to their QC set-up and made me wonder as to whether anyone actually auditioned these products prior to purchase.
Whilst Ruark, in the day, made some very good speakers they are not renown for amplifiers nor streamers so simply questioned why anyone would would want to build a system around a R410 would do so any why without auditioning.
It is indeed unfortunate, these days, that a company can not produce two products that will work together seamlessly.

 

[PJB]

My comment was based around what the 610 actually is.
It's a streaming receiver with Bluetooth.
If going down the streaming route I could not understand why anyone would want a CD player as well. Most people into streaming are trying to get away from physical media so same goes for vinyl.
As to the quality of their inbuilt phono stage I cannot imagine as anyone likely to want to add a turntable to these things might very well already have one in the turntable they own.
Their ability to integrate their own cd transport into their system leaves me in some doubt as to their QC set-up and made me wonder as to whether anyone actually auditioned these products prior to purchase.
Whilst Ruark, in the day, made some very good speakers they are not renown for amplifiers nor streamers so simply questioned why anyone would would want to build a system around a R410 would do so any why without auditioning.
It is indeed unfortunate, these days, that a company can not produce two products that will work together seamlessly.

For what it's worth my view would be that their are many customers like me who are increasingly going down the streaming route (not least because omitting physical releases or restricting them to vinyl is now common) still want to play cds, and to purchase them where produced to give artists a proper payment - so a hybrid set up around a streamer seems reasonable. Ruark are addressing this market, charge a premium for a particular aesthetic and want to build a walled garden. Fair enough. The 410 gets good user reviews, sounds good (especially with subwoofer) - they were getting this right, albeit perhaps for a different segment than those with greater audiophile knowledge and requirements. I do think that having auditioned the main unit, it shouldn't have been necessary to audition a matching transport (which wasn't in any case on the market at the time) but your point is nonetheless perfectly fair.

They messed up here because someone (and not, I think the person I dealt with directly), believed that this, as it turns out easily sortable, fault wouldn't matter to their customers. Whoever that is has hopefully learned a lesson.

I've really appreciated the advice, and suggestions for alternatives people have made here (including those who don'r rate the Ruark approach).