Arcam has put its keenly awaited Solo Movie 5.1 on display in the UK for the first time. The device, which will be officially launched at the Bristol Show in a couple of weeks, has reportedly already started shipping to some dealers.
Assorted journos were given a run-through at a trendy venue in London and on first acquaintance it certainly looks like a highly impressive bit of kit, though it comes at the highly impressive price of £2,000.
It's an all-in-one entertainment system, packing in some high-end components into its chassis, which isn't much bigger than an average-sized DVD player. To recap, it's got a universal player (CD, DVD-V, SACD and DVD-Audio discs, as well as decoding Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby Pro-Logic II, MP3, WMA and DivX codecs), plus AM/FM and DAB tuner, and a 5x50-watt amplifier.
It's an extremely heavy beast at 16.2kg, thanks in part to the massive heat sink which takes up about a fifth of the space. But also packed in there are a toroid transformer, internal video scaling up to 720p/1080i (fine for current HDTV use), and a whole bunch of top-nothc technical trickery, including 24-bit/192kHZ Wolfson Audio DACS, the Zoran Vaddis 888s DVD core processor (last seen in Arcam's £1,800 FMJ DV139 DVD player).
There's even a video wizard to help calibrate your screen for the lighting in your room and the option of Arcam's fancy rDock (£130), which allows you to integrate and control your iPod via the Solo Movie's learning remote and includes an audio preamp and RCA phono outputs so you can use it with audiophile cables.
There's a feast of connections round the back, including a full range of speaker binding posts, three HDMI sockets (two in, one out), analogue inputs, Scart and component connections for non-HDMI sources and a PC connection.
The price makes sure it won't be for everyone, but Arcam seems to have created a very stylish and discreet system that reaches towards high-end quality at a (just about) affordable price. Look out for an AVR review next month.
Also on show were Arcam's entry-level DiVA AVR280 7.1 home cinema receiver (£1,200) and DiVA DV135 1080i-upscaling universal DVD player (£900).
More information: Arcam | Arcam products
