I had some dropouts happening now and then but forwarding the tape and rewinding it before playback solves this issue.
When I unpacked my brand new end of days copy it had dropouts. FFW-REW fixed that
true Lies turned out to be another example, did the FFW-REW thing and now it's all good.
Cleaned the DH5U player once. turned out it wasn't dirty at all! It has very low use
Have a mint NIB around for backup. sadly it is the HM-DH30000u that performs great but doesnt' do dts
own 2 working ones of those...
bought a 3rd with a common fault! 30000u is known for it's bad caps. PS board was gone. Thinking about modding it for 230volts sooner or later...
picked it from ebay with a broken videoboard. used the PS to repair the other one... this way I have donor parts around.
3 good working players isn't a bad idea when it comes to DVHS I imagine.
Would like a marantz MV-8300 but they are so hard to find in mint condition. It's an all black player. More discrete look if you ask me in the Av rack.
One way or the other they always have the frontpanel missing! I ask myself what do some people do with their players? they throw them around...?
The HM-dh5u is a great player but it looks like a christmas three and I dislike the grey color. The cheap HDMI logo doesn't add to it's cosmetics.