This is a review and detailed measurements of the Denon DB-200BR professional balanced Bluetooth receiver. It was kindly drop shipped to me by a member and costs US $129.
The form factor and functionality of the DB-200BR is perfect. While consumer gear uses SMC connectors for BT antenna, we have the more popular BNC connector:
The antenna puck is magnetic which should make it easy to slap on the top or side of the rack.
As you see we have balanced XLR output which is very hard to find in consumer bluetooth receivers. The last one we tested from Kali had very poor noise performance. Hope is that we do better here.
Denon DB-200BR Measurements
The unit only advertised SBC codec which is better than aptX but not as good as LDAC. Using that, here is our dashboard with volume at max:
I was disappointed that with max volume, we could not get more than 1.6 volt. This is about 6 dBu which beats the 4 dBu spec but still, for a professional product we need to get 4 volts. Let's reserve judgement on the SINAD until we test another product to compare to (see below). The really good news is that we get 15 bits of dynamic range which easily beats the 12 bits of Kali:
To see how good we could do, I pulled off the recently reviewed Topping D70 Pro Sabre DAC and drove it with the same SBC codec:
SINAD is identical which indicates the problem is there, not in the implementation post the BT receiver. The topping though outputs 3.3 volts which while still shy of 4 volts, is far better than the 1.6 volt that DN-200BR produces. This lets the D70 Pro to easily eclipse the dynamic range of the Denon:
But this is not the best the Topping can do. Let's switch to LDAC BT DAC:
This matches our testing before showing superiority of LDAC codec in the way it essentially produces transparency for high res audio. Dynamic range is also sharply increased, again matching wired connection:
This is with LDAC in "best effort" mode with a distance of a few feet from my Samsung S23 Ultra streaming to it using Roon player.
Conclusions
The DB-200BR nails the functionality and form factor for a professional Bluetooth Receiver. Alas, it is a let down with its low output voltage which doesn't even rise to what we like to see over RCA let alone XLR. Given that handicap, it still does well with 90 dB dynamic range. It would be nice to see a box like this support LDAC so we get full transparency for people who want to use it in their home scenario (not going to matter for Pro).
Personally I can't recommend the Denon DN-200BR due to its low output voltage. But if that is not an issue for you, we have a performance solution here within the bounds of SBC codec.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The form factor and functionality of the DB-200BR is perfect. While consumer gear uses SMC connectors for BT antenna, we have the more popular BNC connector:
The antenna puck is magnetic which should make it easy to slap on the top or side of the rack.
As you see we have balanced XLR output which is very hard to find in consumer bluetooth receivers. The last one we tested from Kali had very poor noise performance. Hope is that we do better here.
Denon DB-200BR Measurements
The unit only advertised SBC codec which is better than aptX but not as good as LDAC. Using that, here is our dashboard with volume at max:
I was disappointed that with max volume, we could not get more than 1.6 volt. This is about 6 dBu which beats the 4 dBu spec but still, for a professional product we need to get 4 volts. Let's reserve judgement on the SINAD until we test another product to compare to (see below). The really good news is that we get 15 bits of dynamic range which easily beats the 12 bits of Kali:
To see how good we could do, I pulled off the recently reviewed Topping D70 Pro Sabre DAC and drove it with the same SBC codec:
SINAD is identical which indicates the problem is there, not in the implementation post the BT receiver. The topping though outputs 3.3 volts which while still shy of 4 volts, is far better than the 1.6 volt that DN-200BR produces. This lets the D70 Pro to easily eclipse the dynamic range of the Denon:
But this is not the best the Topping can do. Let's switch to LDAC BT DAC:
This matches our testing before showing superiority of LDAC codec in the way it essentially produces transparency for high res audio. Dynamic range is also sharply increased, again matching wired connection:
This is with LDAC in "best effort" mode with a distance of a few feet from my Samsung S23 Ultra streaming to it using Roon player.
Conclusions
The DB-200BR nails the functionality and form factor for a professional Bluetooth Receiver. Alas, it is a let down with its low output voltage which doesn't even rise to what we like to see over RCA let alone XLR. Given that handicap, it still does well with 90 dB dynamic range. It would be nice to see a box like this support LDAC so we get full transparency for people who want to use it in their home scenario (not going to matter for Pro).
Personally I can't recommend the Denon DN-200BR due to its low output voltage. But if that is not an issue for you, we have a performance solution here within the bounds of SBC codec.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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