Thread: Which Denon player is best for SACD sound? 1920,30 2910?

Posts: 10

Post by keenly March 27, 2012 (1 of 10)
Hi Everyone.

I have a DENON 1920; i am wondering if this is o.k or is ther 1930 bestter sound wise?

what about the 2910 version?

cheers
Paul

Post by Yoropiko1 March 27, 2012 (2 of 10)
Generally as you go up in model number the overall sound quality " should " be better, basically because the more it costs the better the internal componants and overall construction will likely be. So by that token the 2910 would perhaps be the better model. Internal DACs will be better specified which is important where SACD is concerned. All componants are a sum of their parts and the element of diminishing returns will apply, so a player at twice the price is not always going to be twice as good sounding. Also consider the quality of your system as a whole too, whilst a more expensive player may genuinely sound better on testing in a shop, the differences when used in your own system may be small and thus not justify the extra cost. Of course if you intend to upgrade your system componants in the near future, do make provision by ensuring you buy the best player you can afford so that you can reap the benefits when upgrading other componants.
Of course the best advise I can give is if possible listen to all the players in the same system and decide for yourself which sounds best, if this is not possible then go for the most expensive one, I know how simple that answer sounds, but the truth is even without hearing any of the players an educated guess would suspect the most expensive one would be the best sounding whatever system it was eventually used in. Although from your choices the Denon DVD universal players you list are all older discontinued models, thus I expect you are looking at a second hand purchase, the 2910 was the most expensive of the 3 players listed when new.
Do bear in mind that none of the above players can output SACD via HDMI so its going to be the six channel analog outputs you will need to use if going multichannel. Make sure your amp has a 5.1 channel analog input unless you intend to listen to just stereo SACD!!

Post by classicrecordings March 27, 2012 (3 of 10)
I would recommend a Denon player if you are planning on using Denon Link 3 and you have a compatible Denon receiver.

If not, then I would recommend that you go for an Oppo 93 if you plan on using HDMI, or go for the 95 if you are going to use the analogue outputs.

Post by The Seventh Taylor March 27, 2012 (4 of 10)
keenly said:

what about the 2910 version?

Or the 3910 version?

Post by Nagraboy March 27, 2012 (5 of 10)
keenly said:

Hi Everyone.

I have a DENON 1920; i am wondering if this is o.k or is ther 1930 bestter sound wise?

what about the 2910 version?

cheers
Paul

I had a 2910 years ago, it was a decent machine for SACD. Not as good as my old Sony 9000ES, but decent enough.

Later I had a 1920 for DVDs and it was OK but a bit brittle and lightweight sounding. Not to mention cheap in build quality.

But why hunt for these antiques? Get an Oppo or a Cambridge Audio BD universal player. Much better all round. Having said that, the 3910 is a nice chunky looking machine!

Post by Geohominid March 27, 2012 (6 of 10)
Hi,
I had an opportunity to try a 1930 recently (II have a 4810 at present). I was dismayed to fined that it does not handle DSD over HDMI, converting it to lower res PCM, nor does it do DSD over DenonLink. Only the high end of the current batch of Denons will do DSD over hdmi at the moment - check by using the compare function on the website.

Good luck
John

Post by Esacede March 28, 2012 (7 of 10)
Forget the Denons (I own a Denon DBP-4010UD). If you want a player with a good sound you should go for a Marantz. But if you want a great analogue DSD sound for an affordable price you should go for the Oppo '95.

Post by Iain March 28, 2012 (8 of 10)
Esacede said:

Forget the Denons (I own a Denon DBP-4010UD). If you want a player with a good sound you should go for a Marantz. But if you want a great analogue DSD sound for an affordable price you should go for the Oppo '95.

+1

Prior to purchasing my Sony BDP-770, I did extensive research of the Denon DBP-1611 blue-ray player.

Found out that these machines are nothing more than re-badged Funai players and are not worth the premium prices Denon want for them. They look quite nice and will visually match receivers, but beyond that is not much of substance.

I'm not bashing Denon here, as I own a Denon receiver and it's great. But their DVD/BD player products leave a lot to be desired.

Post by Lucabeer March 31, 2012 (9 of 10)
I have a 1930, and while a decent machine at a VERY fair price, I have heard far better from other players. You won't hear that much difference between SACD and ordinary Redbook on a 1930.

Planning to upgrade soon...

Post by dikkie13 April 1, 2012 (10 of 10)
Hi Everybody, I own a Denon DCD-2000AE for several years now and I'm very happy with it. Recently it had some troubles playing some SACD's so I replaced its mechanism with great result. I once tried a Denon BDP-4010UD but that thing took forever to load disks.

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