With all this discussion of the number of different versions of the APL Denon 3910 there are out there, I think we should keep in mind that this indirectly illustrates one of the main advantages of doing business with APL. Alex's strategy has from the beginning been to keep making improvements to his basic design and offering them incrementally to his past customers who are willing to return their CDPs for upgrade. He even has located a vendor who makes a hardened case to facilate the shipping. In my mind, this incremental strategy is far preferable to the typical manufacture's strategy of designed obsolesence followed by new box replacement. Certainly, Alex's strategy has kept UPS busy shipping my Denon 3910 back and forth (five times by my count), but preserving my investment, while still being able to take advantage of new technology and component design, is by far a higher priority.
From a personal point of view, I own one of Alex's first APL Denon 3910s. (I owned the APL SACD 1000 prior to that).
And I have upgraded it every time Alex made a new improvement available. Most important to me was the last upgrade. This involved the addition of the linear power supply similar to that available in his Exoteric-based models. This was by far the single most dramatic enhancement to date. The result was so hugh that Alex renamed the upgraded Denon, the NWO 0.5. I know that Alex had only a limited set of parts available for this upgrade, and may not be accepting customers any more, but it illustrates how Alex's design strategy continues to evolve, all the way up to the state-of-the-art NWO 2.5 (for my money the best CDP currently available in the market at any price). For those who want additional information, I suggest you checkout the review I posted on Alex's web site. The link is as follows:
http://www.aplhifi.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=380
Pete Watt
