Apex-7701 Anyone heard, seen or? (1 Viewer)

[Johnny Lerner]

Any news on the Apex 7701 'do everything' DVD?

One question is that can they 'legally' decode SACD? If they infringe on Sony's copyrights/patents won't that mean big trouble?

On the other hand if they stay far enough away in reproducing SACD as Sony meant - and avoid court fights - who will buy it?

And can they advertise SACD if not 'authorized' by Sony? I'm presuming that Sony is sticking by its guns not to let SACD 'out' except via Sony and Philips.

But all this may be moot - because from my 'research' there is STILL no 7701 on the market! Or?

 

[KeithH]

Johnny, the Apex AD-7701 is not out yet. Frankly, I'm not sure it ever will see the light of day. It's been on back-order on J&R Music World's web site for months.

If the '7701 ships and offers SACD playback, then Apex will have to have Sony's blessing. That said, the '7701 need not possess a DSD DAC and thereby perform true DSD decoding. It could take the DSD bitstream and convert it to PCM. Thus, Apex could use a PCM DAC if Sony and Philips were to not grant them the use of a DSD DAC. If the '7701 were to use a PCM DAC, I'm not sure if it would be able to play multi-channel SACDs.

In any event, if the '7701 comes to market with the ability to play SACDs, it will not be an illegal product. Apex isn't a huge player like Sony, Pioneer, etc., but their products are sold by major retailers, so they would have to do things on the up and up. That said, it could be that legal wrangling is delaying the release of the '7701.

Even if the '7701 becomes available, I wouldn't expect too much from its performance. In my opinion, it offers too many features for $300 (progressive-scan, SACD, DVD-Audio, HDCD (?), MP3, etc.) to really do anything very well. That plus Apex's reputation make me skeptical at best about the quality of this product. Of course, if it never ships, the point is moot.

 

[Johnny Lerner]

From all the mention earlier on this forum of the 7701 - and now almost total silence - it may really be the 7701 is a dead-duck - or?