Hello Everyone,
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Denon DVD-3910, tested here as a CD stereo player and transport.
All measurements were performed by my friend @Vintage02 and I'm only acting as the scribe
This will be a shorter review compared to my usual ones since @Vintage02 can't perform yet all measurements but I'm happy to see he's getting there.
Denon DVD-3910 - Presentation
This DVD player was released in 2004 at a relatively high price for the time (1300€). It features everything one would want from a DVD player, at the time, I believe.
I will be testing this big baby (10kg!) as a CD player, as I know a lot of you have asked to know what these are worth.
The back shows us some luxury with bigger RCA outputs for stereo output and digital output too:
The video digital output (DVI-D) was kind of a concern for @Vintage02 fearing that the digital output could potentially be modified by an ASRC, to satisfy a regulation which aimed at protecting high-resolution content output when going through non-encrypted digital outs (naming the Coax and Toslink outputs). This has led some makers to make all audio stream to go through an ASRC to resample at 48kHz max (as per the regulation) hence degrading the original digital signal. We'll try to have a look at that.
Despite being a big player, it's busy inside:
Conversion is ensured by PCM1796 DACs:
Denon DVD-3910 - Measurements (Analog out)
I described my measurements in the post “More than we hear”, and @Vintage02 used the test CD and recommandations for measurements that come with it. Over time, this will help comparing the devices I reviewed (in that case not mine, which is cool).
The Denon DVD-3910 outputs 2Vrsm, and there was a slight channel imbalance of 0.11dB (which is good). The single-ended outputs respect absolute polarity.
Let's go with go with the 999.91Hz sine @0dBFS (without dither) as the main measurement:
Right and left channels are shown but only one gets evaluated in the dashboard. Results are nearly identical between left and right, which is good. The SINAD is limited by H2 distorsion, it makes it sound soft and sweet. Nah, I'm kidding, of course. A THD at -90dB, H2 driven, is not a concern as it will be masked by the harmonic content of music. Despite the highest possible digital level, the calculated SNR is still near theoretical maximum of CD Audio format, and this is very satisfactory.
Let's run the same test but at -6dBFS:
Yeah, distorsion relative to signal decreased, very good news.
I'm now kind of used to show what we can extract from the CD Audio, using shaped dither. This technique allows to lower the noise below the theoretical one of the audio CD, up to 5kHz. It should show as a lower noise floor. This below is an overlay of 999.91Ht @0dBFS without dither and with shaped dither:
We can see some gain but it's limited by the noise floor of the Denon. This is a small improvement and shows the limits of the player. It can resolve a little more than Audio CD, but not by much. It's better than several ancient dedicated CD players, though...
You probably already noticed that this is a very quiet DVD(CD) player, with no visible power supply–related spuriae in its output :
This is a trace I'd like to see much more often!
Bandwidth is very flat:
Despite the zoom, we see near flatness, this is cool and not so common. We also find our 0.1dB difference which, again, many high-end dedicated CD players do not achieve.
Move on to the oversampling filter behavior (from periodic white noise) and together with dual tones 18kHz+20kHz (AES17) :
We see an attenuation of -60dB, out of band, that is only barely decent. The AES dual test tones show us -80dB attenuation, but I think that the usual trick of Denon Alpha filtering which I already talked about for instance with the Denon DCD-SA1. That means, the AL24 filter will switch to an alternative filtering mode when detecting this standardized AES test to "pretend" being better than reality.
On top, you can see the noise level increasing from 50kHz, like if there was noise shaping in action here. This is unusual of the Denon Alpha filtering and I don't see it on other measurements. The takeaway is that again the Alpha filtering switches to a different filtering mode when recognizing standardized tests. Denon, I still love your gears!
Multitone (1/10 decade) shows a happy DVD(CD) player, not having issue to clear 16bits of data:
This is a very neat trace, again something I'd like to see more often (again).
This is the Jitter test:
This is again very good, red trace is the WAV test file, blue is from the Denon. Only a few very low level spikes can be seen. To me, this is near perfection.
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 DVD-3910 made me go "whaaaaat???". Usually the results here are distortion dominated, and I don't bother looking at noise. With this Denon it's the opposite. I reported noise only, distorsion remained below -80dBr. This means that the oversampling filter has 3dB headroom, which is best in class, as simple as that. It will prevent intersample-overs and therefore clipping where it's most likely to happen. I'm really (positively) surprised.
Other measurements (not shown):
Last and not least, I like to have a look a the THD vs Frequency when using a -12dBFS signal. This has proven to me to be a key differentiator, especially when I'm reviewing an old CD Player using R2R conversion. Here are the results with the Denon (Left and Right analog Channels shown, together with the "reference" Denon DCD-900NE) :
The traces nearly completely overlay. This is very good as the Denon DCD-900NE used for reference here is equipped with very good ESS conversion.
Denon DVD-3910 - Measurements (Optical Out)
I've seen several of you reviewing CD players using their digital outputs, in case the results could be improved from an external DAC.
@Vintage02 is refining his test gear for that purpose and could only provide me with one measurement so far.
Stereophile was often using the 3DC measurement as a prof of low noise DAC. It is from an undithered 997Hz sine at -90.31dBFS. With 16bits, the signal should appear (on a scope) as the 3DC levels of the smallest symmetrical sign magnitude digital signal. We are reusing this test in digital domain to show potential modification as I saw them with the Fiio DM13 for instance. This is the result with the Denon:
This trace shows what we expect from digital output, perfect symmetry. The digital output does not appear to be modified. Further tests will confirm.
Conclusion
The Analog output of this player is close enough to what's digitally recorded on the test CD and only limited by low level distortion at the highest output levels. This is a very good "CD Player".
For those concerned by the H2 potentially pleasing sounding (again kidding), you can obviously consider using an external DAC as the digital output is of no concern.
Well, now we know, a good DVD player can play very good music, better than several "legendary" old CD players I reviewed...
Enjoy the weekend.
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Denon DVD-3910, tested here as a CD stereo player and transport.
All measurements were performed by my friend @Vintage02 and I'm only acting as the scribe
This will be a shorter review compared to my usual ones since @Vintage02 can't perform yet all measurements but I'm happy to see he's getting there.
Denon DVD-3910 - Presentation
This DVD player was released in 2004 at a relatively high price for the time (1300€). It features everything one would want from a DVD player, at the time, I believe.
I will be testing this big baby (10kg!) as a CD player, as I know a lot of you have asked to know what these are worth.
The back shows us some luxury with bigger RCA outputs for stereo output and digital output too:
The video digital output (DVI-D) was kind of a concern for @Vintage02 fearing that the digital output could potentially be modified by an ASRC, to satisfy a regulation which aimed at protecting high-resolution content output when going through non-encrypted digital outs (naming the Coax and Toslink outputs). This has led some makers to make all audio stream to go through an ASRC to resample at 48kHz max (as per the regulation) hence degrading the original digital signal. We'll try to have a look at that.
Despite being a big player, it's busy inside:
Conversion is ensured by PCM1796 DACs:
Denon DVD-3910 - Measurements (Analog out)
I described my measurements in the post “More than we hear”, and @Vintage02 used the test CD and recommandations for measurements that come with it. Over time, this will help comparing the devices I reviewed (in that case not mine, which is cool).
The Denon DVD-3910 outputs 2Vrsm, and there was a slight channel imbalance of 0.11dB (which is good). The single-ended outputs respect absolute polarity.
Let's go with go with the 999.91Hz sine @0dBFS (without dither) as the main measurement:
Right and left channels are shown but only one gets evaluated in the dashboard. Results are nearly identical between left and right, which is good. The SINAD is limited by H2 distorsion, it makes it sound soft and sweet. Nah, I'm kidding, of course. A THD at -90dB, H2 driven, is not a concern as it will be masked by the harmonic content of music. Despite the highest possible digital level, the calculated SNR is still near theoretical maximum of CD Audio format, and this is very satisfactory.
Let's run the same test but at -6dBFS:
Yeah, distorsion relative to signal decreased, very good news.
I'm now kind of used to show what we can extract from the CD Audio, using shaped dither. This technique allows to lower the noise below the theoretical one of the audio CD, up to 5kHz. It should show as a lower noise floor. This below is an overlay of 999.91Ht @0dBFS without dither and with shaped dither:
We can see some gain but it's limited by the noise floor of the Denon. This is a small improvement and shows the limits of the player. It can resolve a little more than Audio CD, but not by much. It's better than several ancient dedicated CD players, though...
You probably already noticed that this is a very quiet DVD(CD) player, with no visible power supply–related spuriae in its output :
This is a trace I'd like to see much more often!
Bandwidth is very flat:
Despite the zoom, we see near flatness, this is cool and not so common. We also find our 0.1dB difference which, again, many high-end dedicated CD players do not achieve.
Move on to the oversampling filter behavior (from periodic white noise) and together with dual tones 18kHz+20kHz (AES17) :
We see an attenuation of -60dB, out of band, that is only barely decent. The AES dual test tones show us -80dB attenuation, but I think that the usual trick of Denon Alpha filtering which I already talked about for instance with the Denon DCD-SA1. That means, the AL24 filter will switch to an alternative filtering mode when detecting this standardized AES test to "pretend" being better than reality.
On top, you can see the noise level increasing from 50kHz, like if there was noise shaping in action here. This is unusual of the Denon Alpha filtering and I don't see it on other measurements. The takeaway is that again the Alpha filtering switches to a different filtering mode when recognizing standardized tests. Denon, I still love your gears!
Multitone (1/10 decade) shows a happy DVD(CD) player, not having issue to clear 16bits of data:
This is a very neat trace, again something I'd like to see more often (again).
This is the Jitter test:
This is again very good, red trace is the WAV test file, blue is from the Denon. Only a few very low level spikes can be seen. To me, this is near perfection.
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 | -84.6dB | -84.9dB | -78.1dB |
| Denon DCD-900NE | -34.2dB | -27.1dB | -19.1dB |
| Denon DCD-SA1 | -33.6dB | -27.6dB | -18.3dB |
| Onkyo C-733 | -88.3dB | -40.4dB | -21.2dB |
| Denon DCD-3560 | -30.2dB | -24.7dB | -17.4dB |
| Denon DVD-3910 | -65.3dB | -63.2dB | -64.5dB |
I kept some references and will keep the same for other reviews, so you can quickly compare. The results of the Denon DVD-3910 made me go "whaaaaat???". Usually the results here are distortion dominated, and I don't bother looking at noise. With this Denon it's the opposite. I reported noise only, distorsion remained below -80dBr. This means that the oversampling filter has 3dB headroom, which is best in class, as simple as that. It will prevent intersample-overs and therefore clipping where it's most likely to happen. I'm really (positively) surprised.
Other measurements (not shown):
- IMD AES-17 DFD "Analog" (18kHz & 20kHz 1:1) : -100dB
- IMD AES-17 DFD "Digital" (17'987Hz & 19'997Hz 1:1) : -99dB
- IMD AES-17 MD (41Hz & 7993Hz 4:1): -95dB
- IMD CCIF (19kHz & 20kHz 1:1) : -100dB
- IMD TDFD Bass (41Hz & 89Hz 1:1) : -98dB
- Dynamic Range : 96.6dB
- Crosstalk: Not measurable (DAC shuts down when no signal)
- Pitch Error : 19'996.50Hz (19'997Hz requested) ie +0.0025% (25ppm)
Last and not least, I like to have a look a the THD vs Frequency when using a -12dBFS signal. This has proven to me to be a key differentiator, especially when I'm reviewing an old CD Player using R2R conversion. Here are the results with the Denon (Left and Right analog Channels shown, together with the "reference" Denon DCD-900NE) :
The traces nearly completely overlay. This is very good as the Denon DCD-900NE used for reference here is equipped with very good ESS conversion.
Denon DVD-3910 - Measurements (Optical Out)
I've seen several of you reviewing CD players using their digital outputs, in case the results could be improved from an external DAC.
@Vintage02 is refining his test gear for that purpose and could only provide me with one measurement so far.
Stereophile was often using the 3DC measurement as a prof of low noise DAC. It is from an undithered 997Hz sine at -90.31dBFS. With 16bits, the signal should appear (on a scope) as the 3DC levels of the smallest symmetrical sign magnitude digital signal. We are reusing this test in digital domain to show potential modification as I saw them with the Fiio DM13 for instance. This is the result with the Denon:
This trace shows what we expect from digital output, perfect symmetry. The digital output does not appear to be modified. Further tests will confirm.
Conclusion
The Analog output of this player is close enough to what's digitally recorded on the test CD and only limited by low level distortion at the highest output levels. This is a very good "CD Player".
For those concerned by the H2 potentially pleasing sounding (again kidding), you can obviously consider using an external DAC as the digital output is of no concern.
Well, now we know, a good DVD player can play very good music, better than several "legendary" old CD players I reviewed...
Enjoy the weekend.
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