To Mod Denon DVD-5900 or not?

It appears many audiophiles are using mod player of some sort. This really make me wonder if the mod is really superior over stock of higher price units: a) Is it cheaper with the mod? b) Is the sound really better. I too would appreciate if someone could comments on the sound of their mod unit as compared to the stock of higher price players.

I have a modded SCD-1 and it is far superior to the stock unit. Depth of sound stage and the placement of the instruments in that sound stage is incredible as is the transparency (speakers disappear). The timbre, texture and tempo of the instruments is also vastly improved.

Some high priced players are very good while others are not. I have heard a couple of higher priced units 10kUSD and 13K+USD. The 10K unit was very good, but I did not hear it in my system and would need to do so to give it a fair evaluation. The 13K+ player was directly compared to my modded unit and it fell far short.

It really comes down to the quality of the componests used in the construction of the unit as well as circuit design and execution.

Chuck

I modify/upgrade speaker crossover networks with better parts and was amazed at the sonic improvement. I took this approach when I modified/upgraded my EAD CD-1000 mkIII. I replaced 28 critical caps with much better Rubycon caps, 4 power supply diodes with soft recovery Stealth diodes, replaced all internal wiring with teflon coated silver wiring, and the Auricap tweak right after the IEC inlet.

These are very basic mods/upgrades, I did not alter the circuit design at all, I just put in better quality parts. The results were again amazing. More musical, more air and space around voices and instruments, quieter blacker background, wider soundstage, better imaging, and details within the music were even more noticable. Everything became that much better, highs, mids, and lows.

If you have a decent CDP, it's going to respond well with better parts and is worth it because the source is so important.