Hello Everyone,
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Denon DCD-900NE stereo player and transport.
I previously reviewed the Marantz CD6007 which is in the same category. So much so that packaging is identical, as well as the remote control, as well as the user guide. All look to be sourced from the same consulting company.
I like testing CD Players, especially older ones, but I'm still in search of a modern one which I could use as kind of reference. So far the Onkyo C-733 has this role, but it's extremely difficult to source since it's 20 years old. So let's see what this Denon has to tell us.
Denon DCD-900NE - Presentation
This is the latest iteration from Denon (as of August 2024) of this player, replacing the previous DCD-800NE. As you can see on the above picture, the look has not changed and has been the same for a long time. Similar to Marantz, I like it a lot.
On the front face no phones output, which is too bad. I guess this explains the lower price when compared to the Marantz. Also, no selection of different filters but we get the now famous Denon specific filtering in an advanced version called "Advance AL32 Processing Plus". We'll deep dive into that, trust me.
As with the Marantz, there is also a USB input which will accept a USB drive and higher resolution files (up to PCM 24bits/192kHz and DSD 5.6MHz).
Back panel shows the essential:
We have RCA out and digital (Otpi + Coax).
Here is a picture of the inside:
We find two power boards, one for the digital section with servo control, decoding and the Denon AL filtering, and one for the analog section with the ESS DAC. Everything seems well organized and looks qualitative.
As opposed to the Marantz, no refined output stage (HDAM) of course, but the audio board is nice with the ESS9018S and OP1692 in the output stage (for I/V and LPF, I guess), to make us happy:
In terms of usage, first impression was rather good. But again similar to the Marantz, I was annoyed by the slowness of the drive. Indeed, if going forward is relatively fast (but no where near older players), going backwards was a little nightmare. less so than with the Marantz though.
Really, out of the box, these two players are alike.
Denon DCD-900NE - Measurements (Analog out - From CD)
From now on, I will be consistent with my measurements as I described them on the Onkyo C-733 review. So over time, this will help comparing the items I reviewed.
The Denon DC-900NE outputs 2.402Vrms, that is 1.6dB above the standard 2Vrsm. The two channels were matched at 0.01dB (very good). The single-ended outputs invert absolute polarity.
Let's start with the standard 999.91Hz sine @0dBFS (without dither) from my test CD (RCA out):
Left and right channels are shown but only one gets evaluated in that view. Both channels have the same performances, though. Plot is on H2 (-114.7dBr and -115.2dBr).
Well, it is the lowest THD I ever measured from a CD player (-114dB), a huge 18dB better than the Marantz!
THD+N is limited (and so is the SINAD) the resolution of CD Audio. It's the best we can get.
Same view but at -6dBFS now:
Other results (not shown) are:
The Denon is a very quiet CD player, doing even better than the Marantz:
We can see only one power supply–related spuria in its output, below -130dB at 50Hz (I live in Switzerland). This is nice to see.
Note the very low level side bands on the two views above, around 1kHz. They are power supply modulation at -130dBr (inaudible, negligible).
Bandwidth measurement (now measured from periodic white noise) shows a significant roll-off at 20kHz (-2dB) starting very early (at 4kHz):
Of course, this is due to the oversampling filter which we will analyze soon. The two channels are perfectly matched, well done.
Before talking filter, multitone test showed no issue:
CD Audio content is safe from distortion, no surprise considering the previous results.
Jitter is absent too, exhibiting a beautiful trace:
Red trace is what is on the test CD (digital output), it can’t be better. The Denon (blue trace) does not add any jitter.
And I forgot to add one of my favorite measurements, and that is the THD (excluding noise) vs Frequency at @-12dBFS:
The Denon had no issue except a little and unusual increase from 8kHz. The two channels showed same excellent performances anyways, best I measured, but this test is easy for 1bit DACs. I like this measurement because it shows lack of linearity already at this level with older R2R architectures that I enjoy testing.
Started with the Teac VRDS-20 review, and on your request + support to get it done (more here), I'm adding now an "intersample-overs" test which intends to identify the behavior of the digital filtering and DAC when it come to process near clipping signals. Because of the oversampling, there might be interpolated data that go above 0dBFS and would saturate (clip) the DAC and therefore the output. And this effect shows through distorsion (THD+N measurement up to 96kHz):
I kept some references and will keep the same for other reviews, so you can quickly compare. The results of the Denon DCD-900NE mean the oversampling filter does not have headroom to prevent intersample-overs. The Yamaha CD-1 shines here because it's old enough not to have an oversampling filter.
Denon DCD-900NE - AL32 measurements
I think the Denon proprietary oversampling filter deserves a specific section, as it finds its roots back 3 decades ago.
As @bolserst wrote some time ago ago about Denon filtering, the first iteration of ALPHA processing by Denon featured an automatic filter selection based on LSB toggling, and which I could replicate too. Subsequent version of ALPHA processing included further intelligence in terms of filter selection.
I'll try to keep this section as simple as I can, but it's a challenge.
First, this is the filter response (from periodic white noise) overlaid with the standard AES IMD test (18kHz + 20kHz) which a lot of reviewers like to use:
For the moment, please forget about the filter response (in red) between 60k and 72kHz.
Those of you used to perform and look at these tests will see an impossibility here. It is an obviously slow filter, and so it's not logical to see total absence of aliases of 18kHz and 20kHz (which would be at 26.1kHt and 24.1kHz respectively). That is because the Denon (its AL32 filter) recognizes the typical test tones and switches to a sharp filter in that case, which would make people like me theoretically happy. Fail
To counter the test detection by the AL32 filter, it is enough to add a third test tone with this standard AES test. So adding a 80Hz test tone defeats the detection of the filter, and here below we get what we should:
And tadaa, this time we see what's logical with a slow filter response, aliases of 18kHz and 20kHz replicate around 22.05kHz. So you find them 26.1k and 24.1k respectively. I tested all standard AES, DIN, etc..., and when necessary, the AL32 filter switches to a sharper mode to exhibit what testers like to see : absence of aliases out of band.
Also, as with first iteration of ALPHA processing, it detects square signals and switches to NOS (Non Oversampling) mode in that case. This allows Denon to show perfect square waves. When looking at the same in frequency domain, we get this:
This is beautiful and could be used by a teacher at the university to talk about D/A conversion and its effect on creating aliases, enveloped into a sinc function. This garbage is on purpose, again to show perfect square waves, when requested.
The two filter modes I showed, Sharp and NOS, are not activated during music playback. Their purpose is to shine during very specific tests.
How long as it been going on? I don't know, but I can tell you that the SACD DCD-SA1 (22kg of tech from 2005) exhibits the exact same behavior. I am your father:
Proof? Yes of course, my pleasure:
Same slow filter, and same action switching to sharp filter when detection an AES IMD test, haha.
By the way, good to see that the son (DCD-900NE) improves the filter attenuation overall (see the green spikes of the SA1 going higher), even if keeping that strange bump between 62k and 72kHz. On one side it is good to see high end technology of 20 years ago, sold at a crazy price at the time, making its way to budget CD player, thanks Denon. And if you think the DCD-SA1 was a killing machine (I do), go grab a DCD-900NE and enjoy!
Oh, I almost forgot the essential, with music as well as with white or pink noise, the Denon uses the standard slow filter, there's no switching between filters when playing music. Below is an overlay of long term capture (peaks) of the song "Fast Car" from Tracy Chapman and pink noise:
This shows what happens in real life, with real music content (dark green). The remaining energy of aliases at 62k-72kHz are at -100dBr, basically not of any concerns.
I think it closes this chapter.
Denon DCD-900NE - Measurements (Optical Out - From CD)
I measured the digital output of the player, from my test CD, for those who'd like to use it as a transport. The below view shows what's on the CD:
It can't be better than that, This is what's recorded on my test CD. This is also one of the most stable digital output I encountered.
This, and other measurements I performed on its digital outputs, made me confident that the Denon is a prefect transport for those who want to use it with an external DAC.
Denon DCD-900NE - Measurements (USB In - RCA out)
And to finish, very quick feedback about using the USB input with higher resolution files. The THD does not change (of course) and the noise improves because of the bitdepth increase. Unfortunately, with "only" 2.5Vrms output from the output of Denon (RCA), my interface (Motu ultralite mk5) reaches rapidly its limits (because of no auto ranger like an AP, it would be much more at ease with 5Vrms at least and from TRS connections) and so I essentially measure its noise floor:
I think the SINAD would be better than shown here (-103dB) as again limited by the raised noise floor from my interface (I had to push the input gain by 14dB!).
On a filtering perspective, both with PCM 96kHz and 192kHz sampling rate, I can't see any issue (I can't capture at higher rate than 192kHz which limits the view to 96kHz only):
We can only see here the attenuation with 96kHz input file, and that is around 100dB, which is good.
I did not test with DSD files as I don't have any test files of that type. I think the Denon is at ease with higher resolution files.
Conclusion
Used as a CD player, in audio band, these are the best results I got so far. All measurements are very close to what's on the test CD, so it can't really get better. The Denon DCD-900NE is also flawless as a transport.
When compared to my older Denon DCD-SA1, the little DCD-900NE did better absolutely everywhere (from CDA), wow! It is really nice to see older mega expensive technology becoming available to more people.
The behavior of the AL32 filtering is funny, designed to shine under measurements. It's been ongoing for a long time, the DCD-S10 was already including some tricks.
All that said, I am happy of what I saw, and this DCD-900NE is a keeper. It becomes my new low cost reference CD Player, awaiting for the one that will beat it (and even regardless of price, good luck).
I hope you enjoyed the long review and, as usual, let me know how to improve and if you have questions. I have recorded all the 44 measurements (and much more) and if you want me to publish others or run one of your choice, feel free to ask.
--------
Flo
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Denon DCD-900NE stereo player and transport.
I previously reviewed the Marantz CD6007 which is in the same category. So much so that packaging is identical, as well as the remote control, as well as the user guide. All look to be sourced from the same consulting company.
I like testing CD Players, especially older ones, but I'm still in search of a modern one which I could use as kind of reference. So far the Onkyo C-733 has this role, but it's extremely difficult to source since it's 20 years old. So let's see what this Denon has to tell us.
Denon DCD-900NE - Presentation
This is the latest iteration from Denon (as of August 2024) of this player, replacing the previous DCD-800NE. As you can see on the above picture, the look has not changed and has been the same for a long time. Similar to Marantz, I like it a lot.
On the front face no phones output, which is too bad. I guess this explains the lower price when compared to the Marantz. Also, no selection of different filters but we get the now famous Denon specific filtering in an advanced version called "Advance AL32 Processing Plus". We'll deep dive into that, trust me.
As with the Marantz, there is also a USB input which will accept a USB drive and higher resolution files (up to PCM 24bits/192kHz and DSD 5.6MHz).
Back panel shows the essential:
We have RCA out and digital (Otpi + Coax).
Here is a picture of the inside:
We find two power boards, one for the digital section with servo control, decoding and the Denon AL filtering, and one for the analog section with the ESS DAC. Everything seems well organized and looks qualitative.
As opposed to the Marantz, no refined output stage (HDAM) of course, but the audio board is nice with the ESS9018S and OP1692 in the output stage (for I/V and LPF, I guess), to make us happy:
In terms of usage, first impression was rather good. But again similar to the Marantz, I was annoyed by the slowness of the drive. Indeed, if going forward is relatively fast (but no where near older players), going backwards was a little nightmare. less so than with the Marantz though.
Really, out of the box, these two players are alike.
Denon DCD-900NE - Measurements (Analog out - From CD)
From now on, I will be consistent with my measurements as I described them on the Onkyo C-733 review. So over time, this will help comparing the items I reviewed.
The Denon DC-900NE outputs 2.402Vrms, that is 1.6dB above the standard 2Vrsm. The two channels were matched at 0.01dB (very good). The single-ended outputs invert absolute polarity.
Let's start with the standard 999.91Hz sine @0dBFS (without dither) from my test CD (RCA out):
Left and right channels are shown but only one gets evaluated in that view. Both channels have the same performances, though. Plot is on H2 (-114.7dBr and -115.2dBr).
Well, it is the lowest THD I ever measured from a CD player (-114dB), a huge 18dB better than the Marantz!
THD+N is limited (and so is the SINAD) the resolution of CD Audio. It's the best we can get.
Same view but at -6dBFS now:
Other results (not shown) are:
- Crosstalk : -137dB at 1kHz, -120dB at 10kHz
- IMD AES : -97dB (18kHz+20kHz 1:1 @-5dBFS)
- Pitch Error : 19'997.01Hz (19'997Hz requested) ie +0.00005%
The Denon is a very quiet CD player, doing even better than the Marantz:
We can see only one power supply–related spuria in its output, below -130dB at 50Hz (I live in Switzerland). This is nice to see.
Note the very low level side bands on the two views above, around 1kHz. They are power supply modulation at -130dBr (inaudible, negligible).
Bandwidth measurement (now measured from periodic white noise) shows a significant roll-off at 20kHz (-2dB) starting very early (at 4kHz):
Of course, this is due to the oversampling filter which we will analyze soon. The two channels are perfectly matched, well done.
Before talking filter, multitone test showed no issue:
CD Audio content is safe from distortion, no surprise considering the previous results.
Jitter is absent too, exhibiting a beautiful trace:
Red trace is what is on the test CD (digital output), it can’t be better. The Denon (blue trace) does not add any jitter.
And I forgot to add one of my favorite measurements, and that is the THD (excluding noise) vs Frequency at @-12dBFS:
The Denon had no issue except a little and unusual increase from 8kHz. The two channels showed same excellent performances anyways, best I measured, but this test is easy for 1bit DACs. I like this measurement because it shows lack of linearity already at this level with older R2R architectures that I enjoy testing.
Started with the Teac VRDS-20 review, and on your request + support to get it done (more here), I'm adding now an "intersample-overs" test which intends to identify the behavior of the digital filtering and DAC when it come to process near clipping signals. Because of the oversampling, there might be interpolated data that go above 0dBFS and would saturate (clip) the DAC and therefore the output. And this effect shows through distorsion (THD+N measurement up to 96kHz):
| Intersample-overs tests Bandwidth of the THD+N measurements is 20Hz - 96kHz | 5512.5 Hz sine, Peak = +0.69dBFS | 7350 Hz sine, Peak = +1.25dBFS | 11025 Hz sine, Peak = +3.0dBFS |
| Teac VRDS-20 | -30.7dB | -26.6dB | -17.6dB |
| Yamaha CD-1 (Non-Oversampling CD Player) | -79.6dB | -35.3dB | -78.1dB |
| Onkyo C-733 | -79.8dB | -29.4dB | -21.2dB |
| Denon DCD-900NE | -34.2dB | -27.1dB | -19.1dB |
I kept some references and will keep the same for other reviews, so you can quickly compare. The results of the Denon DCD-900NE mean the oversampling filter does not have headroom to prevent intersample-overs. The Yamaha CD-1 shines here because it's old enough not to have an oversampling filter.
Denon DCD-900NE - AL32 measurements
I think the Denon proprietary oversampling filter deserves a specific section, as it finds its roots back 3 decades ago.
As @bolserst wrote some time ago ago about Denon filtering, the first iteration of ALPHA processing by Denon featured an automatic filter selection based on LSB toggling, and which I could replicate too. Subsequent version of ALPHA processing included further intelligence in terms of filter selection.
I'll try to keep this section as simple as I can, but it's a challenge.
First, this is the filter response (from periodic white noise) overlaid with the standard AES IMD test (18kHz + 20kHz) which a lot of reviewers like to use:
For the moment, please forget about the filter response (in red) between 60k and 72kHz.
Those of you used to perform and look at these tests will see an impossibility here. It is an obviously slow filter, and so it's not logical to see total absence of aliases of 18kHz and 20kHz (which would be at 26.1kHt and 24.1kHz respectively). That is because the Denon (its AL32 filter) recognizes the typical test tones and switches to a sharp filter in that case, which would make people like me theoretically happy. Fail
To counter the test detection by the AL32 filter, it is enough to add a third test tone with this standard AES test. So adding a 80Hz test tone defeats the detection of the filter, and here below we get what we should:
And tadaa, this time we see what's logical with a slow filter response, aliases of 18kHz and 20kHz replicate around 22.05kHz. So you find them 26.1k and 24.1k respectively. I tested all standard AES, DIN, etc..., and when necessary, the AL32 filter switches to a sharper mode to exhibit what testers like to see : absence of aliases out of band.
Also, as with first iteration of ALPHA processing, it detects square signals and switches to NOS (Non Oversampling) mode in that case. This allows Denon to show perfect square waves. When looking at the same in frequency domain, we get this:
This is beautiful and could be used by a teacher at the university to talk about D/A conversion and its effect on creating aliases, enveloped into a sinc function. This garbage is on purpose, again to show perfect square waves, when requested.
The two filter modes I showed, Sharp and NOS, are not activated during music playback. Their purpose is to shine during very specific tests.
How long as it been going on? I don't know, but I can tell you that the SACD DCD-SA1 (22kg of tech from 2005) exhibits the exact same behavior. I am your father:
Proof? Yes of course, my pleasure:
Same slow filter, and same action switching to sharp filter when detection an AES IMD test, haha.
By the way, good to see that the son (DCD-900NE) improves the filter attenuation overall (see the green spikes of the SA1 going higher), even if keeping that strange bump between 62k and 72kHz. On one side it is good to see high end technology of 20 years ago, sold at a crazy price at the time, making its way to budget CD player, thanks Denon. And if you think the DCD-SA1 was a killing machine (I do), go grab a DCD-900NE and enjoy!
Oh, I almost forgot the essential, with music as well as with white or pink noise, the Denon uses the standard slow filter, there's no switching between filters when playing music. Below is an overlay of long term capture (peaks) of the song "Fast Car" from Tracy Chapman and pink noise:
This shows what happens in real life, with real music content (dark green). The remaining energy of aliases at 62k-72kHz are at -100dBr, basically not of any concerns.
I think it closes this chapter.
Denon DCD-900NE - Measurements (Optical Out - From CD)
I measured the digital output of the player, from my test CD, for those who'd like to use it as a transport. The below view shows what's on the CD:
It can't be better than that, This is what's recorded on my test CD. This is also one of the most stable digital output I encountered.
This, and other measurements I performed on its digital outputs, made me confident that the Denon is a prefect transport for those who want to use it with an external DAC.
Denon DCD-900NE - Measurements (USB In - RCA out)
And to finish, very quick feedback about using the USB input with higher resolution files. The THD does not change (of course) and the noise improves because of the bitdepth increase. Unfortunately, with "only" 2.5Vrms output from the output of Denon (RCA), my interface (Motu ultralite mk5) reaches rapidly its limits (because of no auto ranger like an AP, it would be much more at ease with 5Vrms at least and from TRS connections) and so I essentially measure its noise floor:
I think the SINAD would be better than shown here (-103dB) as again limited by the raised noise floor from my interface (I had to push the input gain by 14dB!).
On a filtering perspective, both with PCM 96kHz and 192kHz sampling rate, I can't see any issue (I can't capture at higher rate than 192kHz which limits the view to 96kHz only):
We can only see here the attenuation with 96kHz input file, and that is around 100dB, which is good.
I did not test with DSD files as I don't have any test files of that type. I think the Denon is at ease with higher resolution files.
Conclusion
Used as a CD player, in audio band, these are the best results I got so far. All measurements are very close to what's on the test CD, so it can't really get better. The Denon DCD-900NE is also flawless as a transport.
When compared to my older Denon DCD-SA1, the little DCD-900NE did better absolutely everywhere (from CDA), wow! It is really nice to see older mega expensive technology becoming available to more people.
The behavior of the AL32 filtering is funny, designed to shine under measurements. It's been ongoing for a long time, the DCD-S10 was already including some tricks.
All that said, I am happy of what I saw, and this DCD-900NE is a keeper. It becomes my new low cost reference CD Player, awaiting for the one that will beat it (and even regardless of price, good luck).
I hope you enjoyed the long review and, as usual, let me know how to improve and if you have questions. I have recorded all the 44 measurements (and much more) and if you want me to publish others or run one of your choice, feel free to ask.
--------
Flo
Last edited:
They've basically been gaming the system (i.e. cheating) for decades. What's the saying again - when a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good metric? Someone clearly wanted to have their cake and eat it, too.
