Denon 2900 and Dacs

They're no where near it. Let's put it this way, if you connected a good outboard dac - Benchmark Dac 1 or Bel Canto DAC2 etc) to your Denon 2900 you would notice a major improvement in sound.

I added a Bel Canto DAC2 to my Marantz DV8400, which alone was considered a pretty good audio unit, and the improvement was astonishing.

I consider an outboard dac to be a great way of upgrading a solid player that you want to keep, without completely breaking the bank.

I finally pulled the trigger on an external DAC for my 2900. I bought an Electrocompaniet ECD-1 and am anxiously awaiting it's delivery. I'll reply again in a week or two with my findings.

I'm considering an outboard dac for my Denon 2900. What am I going to hear? I have an Anthem avm30 and an ATI 1807 amp with B&W across the front. I listen to music in two channle,unless it's sacd or dvd-a. Will the expense be worth it.

Coach: I've been listening to my ECD-1 DAC for over a month now and am happy with the purchase. I thought the 2900 as a cd player using its analogue outs was very underwhelming. My opinion is it was designed as a DVD player first and made it a universal player as a secondary goal. The Burr-Brown DACs in it are supposedly pretty good, but for whatever reason the end result wasn't that great, that’s another reason why they were are popular choice for modders. Anyway, back to the question. Yes, to me the expense of adding an external DAC was well worth it. The music sounds much better and the high frequency digital glare (if that is what it was) disappeared. I also think my pre-amp liked the fact I was now feeding it by its balanced inputs.