written by dogist on 20/02/2007
You can connect this cheap DVD to several thousand pounds worth of amplification (krell/bryston) and I assure you it will not disgrace itself, imaging, bass, treble and midrange all excellent and as good or perhaps a little sharper sounding than my old micro mega stage 2 dedicated (1994CD player).
Sound is excellent in my opinion.
I also have a pioneer dvd717 £400 pounds and the sound is disappointing/boring.
written by Yaaz on 30/12/2003
Overall fantastic 5.1 player for its time, mine is still going strong after an internal clean, the whole drive mechanism can be removed and cleaned , remote is cheap and black, silver would have been nice, bit on the large side. 5 stars due lack of support from the makers, do the player justice buy a 5.1 speaker set to realise the full potiential. Yaaz
written by mriceman1974 on 24/11/2003
I bought my Acoustic Solutions DVD551 in feb 2003 for £119.00 from Richer Sounds and it now sells for £49!
Within Couple of months noticed picture going "Blocky" with the picture turning into liitle squares and pausing, then in October had to have it replaced for new unit from Richer Sounds - they replaced it straight away without argument - which may or may not indicate a fault problem they know about.
Picture quality is fine but sound is a little low.
It's definately worth buying for £49.00 and I recommend Richer Sounds as a place to buy from.
written by Moz. on 28/05/2003
I suspect if you wedged an LP in an AS551 DVD player, it would have a go at playing it. It has a wide variety of play modes for a small budget.
However, the remote control was designed by monkeys, and the worst thing about it is the tremendous amount of heat it generates if used for more than about half a movie. This is, I suspect, what causes the enormous pauses and occasional outright failures in the player. I was trying to have a bit of a Buffy season five marathon tonight, but right after the bit where Glory sends Tara insane, the machine just gave up the ghost and tried to hang on to the disk. I actually had to power it down to get it to behave, and the disk eventually popped out white hot. Don't bother, in my humble opinion. Chip a Sony instead.
written by leesutcliffe. on 10/03/2003
I chose this for a birthday present, I'm not a big hi-fi techie but here goes.
I originally wanted a new CD player as mine was old and I wanted one with optical output so I could record minidisks.
I decided that I might as well get a DVD player, they play CDs as well, I looked on the richer sounds website and found the 551 to have all the features I wanted.
so far I have had no complaints at all, as it was only intended as a CD player I have been very impressed with the quality of DVD video.
hooked up though my amp I get amazing sound, admittedly like other folk I did have some problems when I was playing Monty Pythons holy grail, but being a computer techie I wasn't going to give up, I simply fiddled with the audio settings on the remote and presto!! it worked a treat!
the CD sound is good too, much better than my old player.
I would recommend this to any first time DVD buyer.
written by JB. on 27/11/2002
I've only had this a few days and have already found quite a few bad points. Having said all this I would still recommend it to others, particularly those on a budget.
written by S Maramreddy. on 13/11/2002
I got impressed by looking at the reviews posted in this site. I exchanged 2 pieces and both had the same problems
written by Otto. on 04/11/2002
This is a very versatile machine but the faults I have found worry me. The fact that the discs jam so frequently is annoying and the noise the player makes is surely louder than it should be. Providing Richer Sounds can rectify these problems I would recommend it.
written by andrew. on 31/08/2002
This Acoustic Solutions dvd551 DVD player is brilliant. got it from richersounds for £119 it plays anything. bought the sharp dv740 first but took it back and got this one which is miles better.
written by markbulsi. on 27/08/2002
The DVD551 by Acoustic Solutions is a good looking, cheap dvd player but is somewhat lacking in quality. It plays everything. My player has been sent off for repair so hopefully when i get it back it will be a very good bit of kit. If it works when i get it back i would give it a 10/10!
written by amy. on 10/08/2002
lots of features but all you can hear is the background noise and not what the actors/actresses are saying!bummer!
Written on: 13/08/2002
I'm not with you there, old fruity. I bought one last week, and the centre channel works AOK. Have you wired it up wrong? What are you playing it through? Are you using analogue or digital outputs on the DVD player? - Or have I missed your point completely? Are you saying that it works, but it's noisy?
Written on: 19/10/2002
I agree with GeordieDownSouth; a colleague bought the 551 and when we tried a DVD all we were getting was the sound effects and music, but no dialogue.
It was down to the player's Audio options menu; it was set for Dolby 5.1, all we needed to do was set the Downmix to stereo and then we heard all the correct dialogue and effects.
Hope this helps someone with their decision.
Written on: 12/09/2002
Suspect you're using this straight into your TV. I have the same issue, but all you have to do is go to setup, audio or speaker options (can't remember which) and set Downmix to stereo.
<br>
<br>Annoying this isn't the default, but a good player otherwise
written by bobski100. on 09/08/2002
nice machine if you dont want to play vcd
written by IrN-ChRiZ. on 13/07/2002
This DVD551 DVD player from Acoustic Solutions is quite a good budget buy and has plenty of features but I found the picture quality lacking in quality compared to some of the other budget players on the market. The picture shows "artefacts" on areas of solid colour and in dark areas on most dvd's played.
This used to be put down to the encoding of the disc and on many older region 2 movies this is true. However with newer movies this is no longer the case.
Regardless of the movie you can see "artefacts" this used to be a problem on other players and normally a firmware upgrade would fix this.
I have yet to see any firmware upgrades for this player and without one I can't recommend it as there are better players available for the same price
written by Mark. on 10/07/2002
I purchased the Acoustic soloutions DVD551 DVD player for my daughters bedroom (from www.richersounds.com for £119) after studying the reviews on this site.
It plays just about anything from any region with no problem. The player came with the region hack which worked first time when entered.
The picture and sound quality are very good for the price it also plays mp3's. If you want a budget player that looks good you can not go wrong with this one.*****
written by Steckers. on 01/07/2002
Bought this DVD551 from Acoustic Solutions as my first DVD player and am very impressed. Especially considering the price. Looks very stylish and so far have had no problems.
Went for this one because I was told that I could play region 1 discs in colour on my tv which isn't NTSC compatable (has some kind of PAL conversion mechanism!?!?). However, haven't tried yet - has anyone else? How did you get on?
Written on: 02/07/2002
Plays region 1 no problem even RCE also mp3s puts a small browser on screen,I get my region 1 disc's from WWW.dvdconcept.com and WWW.play.com,they are both secure fast on delivery and cheaper than the high street e.g Harry Potter WS only £12.99 free postage as well, shame about the remote - I think the infra-red receiver is set back too far in the player.
written by spudgunn. on 22/06/2002
My friend purchased the Acoustic Solutions dvd551 DVD player and we tested it straight out of the box with a region 2 and 1 (even a region 1 RCE coded) disc and they all played first time with the hack. Played it through a JVC TV with 3D phonic connected with a scart. The sound was good through this setup. This is an ideal entry level or second DVD player for the money - £119.
written by kantankeroos. on 26/05/2002
I was recommended the DVD551 DVD player from Acoustic Solutions by Richer sounds as I was looking for a player with on-board decoder. (I am slowly making the move from PC DVD with 5.1 soundcard and Creative 5.1 speakers to proper setup with DVD, AV amp and speakers, and fancied this as a viable intermediate step). I can tell you this approach works well and would recommend it to anyone as a serious altenative to £500+ DVD & 5.1 speaker packages available!
Anyway, I digress. What can I say? This thing will play just about anything except soup can lids. It plays overburned SVCD's (errm, that errm, my mate gave me) without a hitch, MP3 cd's.. you name it. Even popping in a data CD with mpeg-2 files on, it pops up a file browser and plays them quite happily. Superb! My only gripe (a small one given the low cost of the unit) is that the remote is not well laid out, and will only work if you have a good aim and are level with the player. Unless you are easily amused and play with special features menus a lot this shouldn't be a problem.
Written on: 17/07/2002
HI,
<br>
<br>I have this dvd player and cambridge desktop 5.1 digital surround on my pc (same idea as you) how do i get my cambridge speakers working with the dvd player - do i just need a spdif cable?
<br>
<br>Ben
Written on: 18/07/2002
Ben,
<br>My speakers are the analogue ones, which I've hooked up using 2xRCA - 1x3.5 stereo jack cables, using the analogue outputs on the DVD player.
<br>If your speakers are the digital ones which have an inbuilt AC3 decoder, then yes, I beleive you just use an SPDIF cable.
<br>If you want more info mail me at [email protected]
written by TC. on 23/05/2002
I bought this Acoustic Solutions DVD 551 DVD player from Richer Sounds as my first player just to see what DVDs were like. It was a smart looking little thing for the money but the first problem I found was that the sound level was way too low. An Acoustic Solutions Support chap I emailed admitted that the sound output of this box was known to be less than most of it's contemporaries but it was so poor I thought it was faulty and took it back. No problem was found so I was resigned to putting the TV volume up to practically full power to watch a DVD at a reasonable level. The second problem was that on selecting certain items on various DVDs (usually the trailers or special features) the player locked solid while the TV screen flashed constantly - the only option being to power the player off with the disc still inside it. In the end I upgraded to an LG model and the difference is very noticeable. If you get a good 551 then you're lucky but if there are known problems with it out there why haven't they been sorted out and why is the box still being sold??
Written on: 13/06/2002
I have just purchased one of these from Richer Sounds (for £99) in Exeter and I have found the sound level to be perfect. The unit is connected to a Panasonic TV with Nicam, via a scart cable I bought for £2 from Screwfix Direct ( www.screwfixdirect.com ). The whole thing works fine. However, I did have a few teething problems playing my first ever DVD, "Blazing Saddles", but sorted now. All in all, a very nice piece of kit, with more connections available than I know what to do with!!
Written on: 25/12/2002
I have this player myself and have had the same problem with the sound level going through my camdbridge audio amplifier but it is nto that bigger problem as I don't have to turn it up very high. Dave, I think that it works fine for you as you have a panasonic TV and I know that lots, if not all of the components in the acoustic solutions player are made by panasonic, this could well be why it works fine.
written by eddy. on 16/05/2002
Very impressed with this DVD551 DVD player from Acoustic Solutions. Quality is very good indeed. I bought it as a second machine as my £250 + main player does not play vcd or cdr the picture is very similar. I can, and have recomended this machine to others.
written by Sock_Monkey. on 06/05/2002
The DVD551 DVD player is a top machine!!!
It's a bargain! Unless you want a designer label machine, this one does the job nicely.
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68597_Ryan.'s Response to 54022_JB.'s Review
Written on: 28/01/2003
JB,
The interference with your television is caused by the macrovision signal from your dvd player (I had the same issue). If you go into the hack menu (eject the cd tray, press set up, then next,prev,next, prev) you can disable macrovision - simply set 'ver' to 4000.
Ryan.