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When I first purchased this I played a CD or two and wasn't impressed. After spending the past few weeks enjoying DVD-As, MC SACDs, 2 channel SACDs and DTS CDs all of which I've been enjoying immensely (great sound, excellent stage, fine imaging, open, transparent), it's finally back to checking out the CD sound.Now that some of the newness has worn off, I'm pulling out some of my old CDs. Right now I'm listening to the Theloneous Monk Memorial Album. This disc has all the qualities that will bring out the worst in a CD. The sax, cymbals, brushed drums, piano, and bass are all coming across clean, real, and without perceived distortion. A while ago I was listening to the Hungarian Symphony with the Canadian Brass in their live audience Celebration CD and it too came across beautifully with a 'being there' like experience with even the audience clapping sounding clean and real (don't laugh, audience clapping often comes across to me as an irriting sound on CDs).
'nuff said. I'm sold on this pretty darned inexpensive do-everything player. I have no regrets what-so-ever with having replaced my 2 channel Technics A10 DVD-A player and Sony 9000es SACD player with this Denon 2900.
System: Dennon 2900 player ... YBA Audio Refinement MC analog preamp, Sunfire Grand MC amp and a room full of Maggi 2.5s (and a now non-functioning Genesis 900 sub). The room is 20 x 24/26 (irregular) with 13 foot wood viga'd ceilings.
Follow Ups:
Just listened to the 2900 for the first time, and first impression on SACD and DVD-A was very good. Sometime next week I’ll bring a unit home for some serious testing and I’ll post the results at my website (this will be my first hardware test :-).Since I have a limited time to perform the test, I would of course be interested in optimization tips, like: is there any sound degradation when applying bass management.
Thanks
Lars B.
First, let me mention that I really do love the sound of the music I experience from this apparatus. I haven't felt this much excitement with home music performance since vinyl went to stereo.One suggestion, don't even bother to evaluate it for 16 bit pcm CDs until you've given it a good long break-in. The difference for me was night and day.
Now the bass management good news ...
... I've experienced NO degredation in music performance with bass management incorporated. The music always comes across as very clean and detailed.
Now a bass management caveat ...
... Until my Genesis 900 servo sub failed me I was making full use of its remote control setting sub volume, low pass, high pass, and phase capabilities to optimize for my room and speakers.
Now the bass management bad news ...
... Since the control circuitry failed on my Genesis, I've connected it's speaker directly to a separate amp off my analog preamp's sub output. On some recordings, especially SACD recordings, I've experienced a subtle longing for more from my sub. Even with DVD-A I think more sub support is needed (I'm saying this as I sit here listening to Ted Koopman's Organ Spectactular DVD-A).
Suggestions for Denon 2900 setup ...
... First, get on the web and find the Denon product bulletin for bass management setup. It answers some of the 2900 manual's unanswered questions. Doing a Google search of, "Denon 2900 bass management" yields lot's of factual, non-factual, and opinionated insight to the issue.
... Second, when doing speaker distance settings using your trusty Radio Shack sound level meter, I suggest you start by setting your sub to zero db and then set the db attenuation on your other speakers as required.
Final comment ...
... Not even considering the great sound from this unit, the beauty of it for me has been the ability to greatly simplify my sound system (far fewer connections and apparatus) and eliminating the necessity for tweaks and adjustments when switching from format to format (DVD-A, CD, DTS music, and SACD). Interface is seamless allowing me to keep these discs in a single hi-rez library with no separation by format (just insert the disc and luxeriate in the music).
By the way, for watching DVD movies, both the video and sound have been excellent (equipment: built in Pioneer Elite 60" 710 TV).
“... Since the control circuitry failed on my Genesis, I've connected it's speaker directly to a separate amp off my analog preamp's sub output. On some recordings, especially SACD recordings, I've experienced a subtle longing for more from my sub. Even with DVD-A I think more sub support is needed (I'm saying this as I sit here listening to Ted Koopman's Organ Spectactular DVD-A).”During my research I found out that setting “Filter On” will drop SACD LFE 15 dB and DVD-A LFE 10 dB. I’m not entirely sure what “Filter” is. Could it have something to do with bass management?.
Also, I have been told that bass management affects both SACD and DVD-A (only one set-up needed) and that there’s no time alignment for SACD. Can you confirm this?
Is there time alignment for DVD-A?
Lars B.
Lars, this is a duplicate of a Hi-rez highway response to a similar question by Jim Pierce (the answer to your question on time alignment is noted on the bottom of this posting):I did indeed have the filter set to 'on' (oops). With the filter set to 'off' (recommended when playing SACDs and DVD-As) I do get viable subwoofer output.
One caveat though, with the filter set to 'off', I believe that bass management is out of the picture (80hz rolloff from the mains with the low freqs sent to the sub) for both SACD and DVD-A. There's every indication that all freqs are sent to the sub with no speaker rolloff. Indeed, the manual does say, "Set this to play 6-channel sources recorded in all-channel full band frequencies", - and - "When "OFF" is set, the speaker size is set to "LARGE" for all the speakers and the subwoofer setting is set to "YES".
Having all speakers including the subwoofer presenting all frequencies, this setting does muddy the waters a bit (especially without a very fast responding servo sub).
And yes, the manual does mention the bass boost. It says, "DTS recommended all-channel full band playback setting. (Note however that the subwoofer volume increases by 5 dB, by 15 dB when playing super audio CDs.)"
Now, with that said, I believe I'll just set the filter position to 'on' with all speakers set to 'large' so I can enjoy maximum music clarity (meaning no real bass management).
I don't see why Denon didn't just provide a '6 full channel/5.1 channel' switch which would have allowed bass management for the 5.1 recordings and full music passthrough for the 6 channel.
Lars, there's no time alignment per se on the Denon 2900 (audio delay (distance to speakers), but no time alignment adjustment capability. I believe Chesky puts has a test cd that will allow one to perform this manually allowing for optimum tweaking for speaker placement).
> > I don't see why Denon didn't just provide a '6 full channel/5.1 channel' switch which would have allowed bass management for the 5.1 recordings and full music passthrough for the 6 channel. < <BUT that's EXACTLY what the "filter" IS !!
i.e. All it does is to change between "5.1" and "6.0" modes.
Rationale: Obviously in 6.0 (i.e. full six-channel recorded music) you need a full-frequency bandwidth capability from ALL six analog output jacks [to six equally sized full-range (i.e. "large") speakers].
Also, all the six channels must have equal volume level. This is why you get the so-called "boost" to what would otherwise be the LFE channel.
But it’s not really a boost, because all it does is equalise (i.e. raise by ~10dB) the sixth channel to the same as all the others.
setup that resulted in bad setup and wrong conclusions.
...Wouldn’t you get the purest audio with Filter set to OFF?
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