Denon DVD2900 Vs Marantz Dv8400.

I just spent a few very intimate days with both the Marantz DV 8400 and the Denon DVD2900.
I work for a pro audio company and I was searching for an inexpensive (less then $2k) "reference" Multi player.

in short!

For SACD/DVDA Marantz hands down.
For DVD and general use and feel DENON hands down.

Full bas management was one of the criteria. No matter how good your room is and how well your full range speakers reproduce bass in your room, it is significantly easier to place and setup a system if you have a sub you can move around.

Well turns out that the denon although it seems to have "Full" base management, it doesn't.
1,. The SUB outs are at -15db. Unless your preamp can compensate for this (In my case the Classe SSP75 did well with trim) you will be screwed.
(I guess the source of this has a lot to do with DTS and AC3, But for god sakes, do these people seriously believe that we need that in the player to begin with, I mean how many of us will use the built in AC3 and DTS decoder? None. I'd say)

2,. What in the hell is up with 120hz THX crap when we're talking music? With a single especially 120hz high filter your options to move bass around the room greatly reduced!!!
(Again this has to do with movies and NOT WITH MUSIC coming from DVDa and SACD!)

After I was done being mad at the shortcomings of the Denons "full" bass management and adjusted and recalibrate the Classe, I started listening.

Got many titles from DSOTOM trough Franky Goes to Hollywood about 15 Pure DSD Telarc titles, some classical etc... about 100 disks.

For the past 5 years I have been listening to hihg resolution mixes in my office and other studios.
Have heard DSD recordings, but never really paid attention to the player, till now.

It was soon obvious that the DENON was very shy and nervous. So much so, that I had to revert back to CD's for a second just to see how bad the denon was compared to the Classe DA and analog stage.
THIS IS NOT A FAIR COMPARISON I know! You can't compare a $1000 player to a $7000 all balanced super high end pre pro! Sure enough, it sounded thin less focused and a lot less detailed compared to the Classe. But there was something else. The Denon Seems to add some hihg frequency garbage to the music. It sounded like it was on crack. Very jittery very unsatisfying.

Moving on....Ok so the Denon just can't compare to the calsse's Da and analog.
Lets see if we can live with it. Played for 5 days, adjusting levels, skipping tracks and never being fully satisfied. There was always this bright thing harsh sound that on a revealing and already bright system just was not something I could listen to for too long. This was true for almost all disk, DSD or PCM.

Having heard a lot of high res recordings from masters and mulittracks I knew there had to me more.
Sure there is but I don't want to pay 10k!

Looked at the Marantz site and noticed that they have an "Updated Audio section".
Oh well its still less then 2k, and It doesn't have bass management for SACD but at this point I'm just looking to see if there is something wrong with the Denon or what?

Yes I read all the reviews of the 8300! (I never head it though, in the matter of fact this is the only two high res players I ever heard in a controlled environment).

But I have a feeling that when Marantz Say that they have an upgraded audio section they mean it!

Night and day! The difference was so big, that I have to declare: If you are interested in what DVDA and SACD is today, you have to get the Marantz! The denon just looses the entire essence of what high res especially SACD (DSD) is supposed to be all about!

The air, the smoothness the coherent time domain with the most amazing imaging with ear blasting dynamic range of DSD recordings was now in my room with the 8400!

The shaker on Billy Jean in the right jumped out of the EMIM midrange and slapped me as much as Al DI Meola's guitar stings wrapped around me ear!
I had to get up many times to see if my center channel was on for some reason.
Some vocals parts were coming not just so focused from the middle but also about 2 feet higher compared to my mains, exactly where the center was. It wasn't on!

So despite the fact the denon with it's shaky bass management provides a lot better bass response in the room, there is just no comparing the two for overall listening pleasure!

Now the real dirt!

Both players are well built, the denon has a more solid transport.
The marantz has a "bigger" power supply and copper chassy.
The donon separates all the different circuits onto separate boards, the marantz share the audio with the video (Except the DVI out!).
The Deonon has the Latest TI (Burr Brown) the Marantz has the latest Cirrus (Crystal) 192k chips.
And last the Denon has an IC for operational amp the Marantz has a very nice discrete stage with good components (1% etc) and a copper shield for all its transistors for temp control and some shielding I guess.

I have a feeling that IC Opp amps burr brown or not, are just no match for discreet!
The difference I hear between the two players are very much what I experienced going from a Lexicon DC1 to the classe SSP75. (The classe ssp has like 3o somewhat transistor / output!)

Now the real dilemma...

I only have a 32" sony tv monitor in this room and only s video connection, but it was easy to see that the DENON is FAR better in picture then the Marantz! Far more film like a lot smoother, every one noticed! Oah! Look at that picture on that tv.(Brave Hart, Die An other day etc.)) The Marantz however has a DVI out! (Not enabled yet! software updated!?) and if you have DVI in on your display device this may help with the picture quality. (DOn't know if it's the decoding or the video DA that is much better in the denon!) Hoping that the video quality is indeed the product of the video DA section so when we get a DVI projector it will "open up". THis is purely a speculation!

The marantz also got some nasty bugs!
Some DVD a titles it takes as much as 6 sec to skip a track!
It also had a hard time playing some of the DVDA disk! Like it was dirty! Skipping crazy!
The user interface on the Marantz seems like was written by a college kid (No wonder they spent all the money on that analog guy they called in to fix the 8300's audio performance!)

For now!

If you need a new DVD player with awesome video and want to make sure it is compatible with all CURRENT formats, the denon may be a good choice! But YOU WILL NEVER EXPERIENCE WHAT DSD or even DVDA is all about!

If you are looking to find out what DSD and DVDA is all about and don't care much about video quality (the marantz is was still satisfying!) and don't mind the amateur UI, then the marantz is pretty good.

If you make less then 100k a year I would say the time of the multi player is not here yet!

Even the Lexicon RT10 (I can't wait to hear that beast now) is missing on features!

The denon does not have bass management as it stands.
This is what bass management is!

Separate settings for all formats! (DTS, AC3, DVDA, SACD they are all different!)
Equal level out with trim for all channels (So if you want to use the built in decoder you can cut 15db out of dts and ac3 but enjoy normal level outs on the sub when listening to music).
Adjustable sub filter from 40 to 120 hz (but at least 60 80 and 120 presets)!
Having a fixed 120hz is not managing bass!
(The hardware is in there! SOftware only!)
Phase switch on sub out.

I keep the Marantz for now, despite the fact that it can't do bass management at all.
It just sounds far better and hoping that when the DVI is on and got a DVI display I will get better picture. But I will mad as hell if they can't put proper bass management in there!!!

If you already own the Denon, demand that they fix the sub out!
Demand that they offer full base management for each format.

If you already got the marantz, start sending them emails about how your player is broken!
No bass management! Crap UI! DVDa Crashes! This is all software and as I understand Marantz actually lives up the promise on software upgrades.

Frankly I would demand digital out!
Like I said I work in pro audio, there is no excuse for the recording industry's abuse of manufacturers like this! There is no reason to duplicate expensive DA and analog stages in the player! What the hell are you going to do with DSD or 96/24 5.1 PCM audio anyway?
What if you can record it to a computer maybe? How will you copy that and onto what?
We can't make a DSD disk no matter what. And authoring a DVDA is a mess.
You could I guess make a CD quality copy, but we can already do that!!!
There is no reason why we can't just have a player with digital outs!!!
DVI 1394 or something! SONY btw has an 8 channel 64fs DSD interface that can carry PCM also.
It is based on cheap cat5 cable and cost less then $40 to implement / port! Runs for 100m!
http://www.sonyoxford.co.uk/pub/supermac/sm-module.html

http://www.usa.denon.com/support/
http://www.marantz.com

Riddle me this!!!!

On the dark side of the moon release!
There is a drop out! 10 sec or so long.
It wasn't on the masters! It was on the multitrack! Basically, what you will hear is one section of the wall of sound (I won't point it out because then it's easier to find what instruments). Some high frequency information in the background goes away for about 10 sec or so.

Tell me what track and which channel!

I think this indeed was a mulitrack drop out, that they either didn't hear, or didn't want to fix.
(If they didn't want to fix I understand! Putting PCM mastering tools in the way of DSD is a mess. and as for now many DSD "workstations" actually work in 384khz PCM mode for processing. so the less processing fixing the better...).