Denon DCD-900NE (CD Player)

[NTTY]

A mathematic consequence of that sort of conversion, I am saying.

It’s not “that sort of”. Converting a binary word into a voltage, and then keeping that voltage until next sample is what causes it. There’s no other way, because that’s what it is.

Any analog signal, when represented in digital world, is discrete. It means we store only so few digital words per seconds, enough to recreate the original analog signal.

Again: I’m sure we will all (hopefully) live to see a D/A converter that is capable to produce analogue output that needs no further treatment.

Again, analog or digital (or both) filtering resolve the issue. And so there’s no issue.

————
Flo

 

[restorer-john]

I have a low pass filter to stop distortion calculation at 20kHz. Do you believe that I need to extend it for this test?

Is it a software LPF or a hardware LPF? Software cannot stop slew induced inputs to an A/D.

The other things I consider is the S/N is not signal to noise in the true sense. It's noise in the presence of signal and that's a whole other thing. I have that problem myself. With digital (CD players) they will mute the D/A output at zero output and that will inflate the S/N. But using -60dBFS and calculating S/N is not accurate either.

What test CD are you using? I see you had the Denon (38C39-7147?) which is mostly undithered. The CBS-CD1 or the Philips are the standards. I have all of those and the Philips and the CBS-CD1 are essentially the same in most tests (not all).

I'm glad there is another person out there who cares to test vintage high end CD players.

Your Denon dcd-900 is very impressive in its test results.

 

[Timmy]

And so there’s no issue.

Well, that’s exactly the point where our views are different: If there was no issue (as you say), then why is there any need of filtering?

The filtering is necessary because there very well is an issue.

 

[Sokel]

I wish my ancient DVD5000 falls in your hands,I always wanted to see it measured.
Thanks for the review!

 

[restorer-john]

Well, that’s exactly the point where our views are different: If there was no issue (as you say), then why is there any need of filtering?

The filtering is necessary because there very well is an issue.

No, there is no issue.

The digital to analogue converter is part of the the system. It's not the entire system. The d/a converter requires filters, just as a class d amplifier require filters or an fm stereo tuner requires filters. Even your digital camera requires filters to ensure the data it captures and processes is useful and accurate.

 

[Scytales]

I wish my ancient DVD5000 falls in your hands,I always wanted to see it measured.

It have been measured by a German lab with an Audio Precision for the second quarter of 1999 issue of the Audiophile hi-fi magazine. A glimpse of the result can be find here : https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ources-from-1992-to-2024-ranked-by-thd.47789/

The quoted THD should not misleads you as I have stopped to H5. The published FFT shows a spectral content with much more harmonics and intermodulation or switching artefacts above rank 5 over the entire audio bandwidth, a behaviour I find typical of ladder DAC chips such as the Burr Brown PCM1704 used in this Denon, much like the kind of response amirm has measured at the output of his own Mark Levinson DAC : https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/mark-levinson-no-360s-dac-review.10842/

Example of past Audiophile issues can be find on German Ebay from time to time, but this lavish magazine is usually not sold cheaply.

 

[dualazmak]

Let me send my biggest congratulations to OP @NTTY for your wonderful and intensive evaluation of DENON DCD-900NE!

Even though I still keep my big and heavy (22 kg!) DCD-3500RG (also ref. here), which went through overhaul maintenance by DENON twice, in perfectly-functioning shape (balanced XLR out) in my audio rig (ref. Fig.22, Fig.23, Fig.24, Fig.25 in my post #931 on my project thread), I have never read such an intensive review/measurement article on it...

BTW, nowadays I seldom power-on my DCD-3500RG since I always use dBpoweramp CD Ripper to rip newly purchased CDs into non-compressed 44.1 kHz 16 bit AIFF format to be saved/stored in my SSD digital music library (ref. here and here). It nicely serves, however, together with heavy ACCUPHSE E-460 integrated amp (24.4 kg) as heavy and solid "base" for my revived turn table DENON DP57L.

 

[Sokel]

It have been measured by a German lab with an Audio Precision for the second quarter of 1999 issue of the Audiophile hi-fi magazine. A glimpse of the result can be find here : https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ources-from-1992-to-2024-ranked-by-thd.47789/

The quoted THD should not misleads you as I have stopped to H5. The published FFT shows a spectral content with much more harmonics and intermodulation or switching artefacts above rank 5 over the entire audio bandwidth, a behaviour I find typical of ladder DAC chips such as the Burr Brown PCM1704 used in this Denon, much like the kind of response amirm has measured at the output of his own Mark Levinson DAC : https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/mark-levinson-no-360s-dac-review.10842/

Example of past Audiophile issues can be find on German Ebay from time to time, but this lavish magazine is usually not sold cheaply.

I would be happy if only it went near Amir's ML.
Funny thing is that they seek for it even today in order to grab BBs from in there.Nostalgia I guess.

(I bought it for DVD back then,I rediscovered it when Knopfler's HDCD was out near after it and that could play it.It sounded nice,nothing missing,nothing much and it was bombproof,that's all about it)

 

[antcollinet]

In other words: The result of D/A conversion, which is analogue data of course, inevitably needs to be filtered. Correct?

That means, at least to my understanding, that the core D/A conversion definitely leaves some room for improvement.

You're obsessing over nothing. There is a step by step process to get from digital to high quality analogue. The last step of that process is filtering.

Lets use an analogy (never a good idea, but let's see how it goes). Take another step by step process: bread making.

You mix the flour, water, yeast, a little salt. Then you knead it. Then you prove it, then you knock it back, knead it again, prove it again. Then the last step: you bake it. Your argument literally sounds like:

Since the result of the actual mixing, kneading and proving is so bad I can't eat the result, and it has to be enhanced by baking, there seems to be a lot of room for improvement. We need a core mixing kneading, proving process intelligent enough to produce a result I can eat without further enhancement.

I'm afraid I have to give you a

 

[Timmy]

Your Denon dcd-900 is very impressive in its test results.

I wonder how smooth the Denon DCD-900NE fits into the gap between his bigger/smaller Denon brothers:

Denon DCD-600NE appr. 280 Euros
Denon DCD-900NE appr. 340 Euros
Denon DCD-1700NE appr. 900 Euros

While I personally wouldn’t hesitate to spend some 60 Euros more for a DCD-900NE over the DCD-600NE (no USB, no Coaxial-Out ...), I am not so sure about that big price difference combined to eying the DCD-1700NE instead. One thing here is certainly the much better drive. Maybe also the weight, that is almost twice the one of the DCD-900NE. Maybe even its »Made in Japan« tag. But will it sound that much better than the »900«?

 

[NTTY]

I wish my ancient DVD5000 falls in your hands,I always wanted to see it measured.
Thanks for the review!

Hi, not this one but a Denon DVD-A1, yes. And if I remember correctly, the 5000 also uses the AL24 and 4 BurrBrown PCM1704 DACs.

That was a beast:

I gave it to my brother, so I could test the A1 next time I go see him (in October). At the time, I was using the Denon test CD, which does not have dither, and my measurement interface was a Focusrite. I did not keep the measurements, unfortunately, but I could find couple of print screens in my archives. Here you go with a sine 1001Hz @ 0dBFS (undithered) from the Denon CD test:

Sorry, this is linear scale, but it does change the measurement.

I remember I played with the digital input too and I had fun replicating the graphs shown in the BurrBrown PCM1704 datasheet, especially -90dBFS linearity measurement, I recall.

In a nutshell, this DVD was getting me the best of the PCM1704. A fantastic CD (too) player.

--------
Flo

 

[NTTY]

Is it a software LPF or a hardware LPF? Software cannot stop slew induced inputs to an A/D.

It is software.

The other things I consider is the S/N is not signal to noise in the true sense. It's noise in the presence of signal and that's a whole other thing. I have that problem myself. With digital (CD players) they will mute the D/A output at zero output and that will inflate the S/N. But using -60dBFS and calculating S/N is not accurate either.

I agree. Ancient DACs were not muting themselves when fed with digital silence. And then they implemented this trick to show of the impossibility.
I use a -60dBFS signal without dither, which I believe to be somehow the best possible representation of what the "true" SNR would be. With the best of them, I fall on the "SNR = 6.02N + 1.76dB" which sounds good to me.
I was also using a digital silence signal in the past, without dither, but I stopped using that because of some DACs shutting down in that case.

What test CD are you using? I see you had the Denon (38C39-7147?) which is mostly undithered. The CBS-CD1 or the Philips are the standards. I have all of those and the Philips and the CBS-CD1 are essentially the same in most tests (not all).

Indeed, I was initially using the "Denon Audio Technical CD" (38C39-7147), and also the Sony Test CD. But they are undithered. So I created mine and it took some time, because Windows Media Player was adding low level distortion (in fact a low level square signal was inviting itself), preventing me to reach same quality as the aforementioned. And then I discovered it was a question of removing the "Apply volume levelling across tracks" in WMP. At this point, I was able to create same quality test CD. Later, I moved on to use dither, except for the SNR calculation, and representation of the 3DC levels, as dither would mask what I want to see.

I'm glad there is another person out there who cares to test vintage high end CD players.

Thank you! I wanted to discover the technical evolution through measurements, because I know what my ears can tell me, and it wasn't enough

Your Denon dcd-900 is very impressive in its test results.

I concur, that's why I'll keep it, and wait another one to perform better (good luck to me).

--------
Flo

 

[NTTY]

I wonder how smooth the Denon DCD-900NE fits into the gap between his bigger/smaller Denon brothers:

Denon DCD-600NE appr. 280 Euros
Denon DCD-900NE appr. 340 Euros
Denon DCD-1700NE appr. 900 Euros

While I personally wouldn’t hesitate to spend some 60 Euros more for a DCD-900NE over the DCD-600NE (no USB, no Coaxial-Out ...), I am not so sure about that big price difference combined to eying the DCD-1700NE instead. One thing here is certainly the much better drive. Maybe also the weight, that is almost twice the one of the DCD-900NE. Maybe even its »Made in Japan« tag. But will it sound that much better than the »900«?

I suppose the DCD-600NE performs the same, provided it's the same DAC (I see it has the AL32 filtering too).
The DCD-1700NE adds SACD playback, if you need. It will perform the same as DCD-900NE with CD audio. You won't hear a difference.
The "drive" of the DCD-900NE outputs digital perfection, so you can feed a high resolution external DAC, for hardly a difference.

 

[Timmy]

The "drive" of the DCD-900NE outputs digital perfection

By saying »drive« I mean the drives

 

[Watire]

Indeed, I was initially using the "Denon Audio Technical CD" (38C39-7147), and also the Sony Test CD. But they are undithered. So I created mine and it took some time, because Windows Media Player was adding low level distortion (in fact a low level square signal was inviting itself), preventing me to reach same quality as the aforementioned. And then I discovered it was a question of removing the "Apply volume levelling across tracks" in WMP. At this point, I was able to create same quality test CD. Later, I moved on to use dither, except for the SNR calculation, and representation of the 3DC levels, as dither would mask what I want to see.

--------
Flo

Dear Flo, would you mind illustrate to us the difference between the dithered and undithered signal in a future session of test ?
Was it about just pushing the limits of the measurement/medium in general or was it specifically needed to better differentiate between every device behavior?

 

[dualazmak]

Indeed, I was initially using the "Denon Audio Technical CD" (38C39-7147), and also the Sony Test CD. But they are undithered.

Is the Sony Test CD you referred "Sony Super Audio Check CD 48DG3" (ref. my post here #651)?

I still rather frequently use the ripped tracks of this Sony Super Audio Check CD for check and measurement of my audio setup, especially the "High Fq Liniality Check Track; Track-20" (ref. here) as well as many other test tone/signal tracks.

 

[NTTY]

Dear Flo, would you mind illustrate to us the difference between the dithered and undithered signal in a future session of test ?

Sure, here you go:

1kHz @0dBFS without dither:

1kHz @0dBFS with dither:

You see that the noise floor increased, and so the noise is calculated 3.8dB higher.

Dither finds its interest at very low level, to minimize the mathematical errors of decimation.

Example 1kHz @-88dBFS without dither:

We see distortion coming from mathematical imprecision at this very low level of CD (16bits).

Now the same 1kHz @-88dBFS with dither:

Distortion has vanished below noise. Note also that I was requesting -88dBFS. With the 0.5dBFS headroom of the measurement interface, I should get -88.5dBFS. Look above, without dither, I got -89.84dBFS, which means we loose precision, or linearity (by 1.34dB deviation). With dither, I got -88.49dBFS, that's only 0.01dB deviation. So not only distortion decreased, but precision and linearity increased.

Was it about just pushing the limits of the measurement/medium in general or was it specifically needed to better differentiate between every device behavior?

Just because it's what is recommended in the standard AES17-2020 - Measurement of digital audio equipment:

It makes sense to add dither since all recordings are produced this way (since 90s I think). That also helps indeed differentiating, to some degrees, the CD Players. In fact, those benefiting the most from dither are ancient, and not so much linear, R2R architectures that are really boosted by dither. Since recordings contain dither, it's fair to compare the CD players with it too. I suppose it's the reason for the AES recommendation.

--------
Flo

 

[NTTY]

Is the Sony Test CD you referred "Sony Super Audio Check CD 48DG3" (ref. my post here #651)?

I still rather frequently use the ripped tracks of this Sony Super Audio Check CD for check and measurement of my audio setup, especially the "High Fq Liniality Check Track; Track-20" (ref. here) as well as many other test tone/signal tracks.

No, I use(d) the Sony YEDS-18. This is CD Audio only.

But I’d be interested to find other test SACD containing pure test tones. The only one that I have (from Denon) has too few test tones to reveal full performance.

Thanks for the links!

————
Flo

 

[antcollinet]

Again: I’m sure we will all (hopefully) live to see a D/A converter that is capable to produce analogue output that needs no further treatment.

We already have it. Take every DAC in the green and blue sections of the sinad chart. (and many in the orange and red sections). They are all:

.....capable to produce analogue output that needs no further treatment.

 

[Watire]

@NTTY your graphs and comments are wonderful, edifying. They make it clear how dither plays out. So it's not a trick but a smart way to reach the limits of the medium, and most good player has it in its guts, that is good news. Thank you a lot, you made my day!

Your reviews are exciting.

"Vive le CD !"