Hello,

Can anyone give me some good feedback - have I made the right choice?

Where I live local shops only stock cheap-looking DVD players and makes like Sony, Toshiba & philips - but as I had £100 to spend I wanted something a bit better - and upscaling is not a requirment.

I initially purchased the attractive looking Pioneer Dv-490v from Empire Direct but sent it back after experiencing some of the reported problems with this machine. My only alternative seemed to be the Denon 1720 which was a nice looking machine and did Progressive Scan and PAL / NTSC playback, which is essential for me.

So anyone think I made the right decision?

I am still waiting for my Denon to be delivered - fingers crossed it will be tomorrow!

I will report my opinion on it soon after.

Regards
ExperimentalGuy

[simonhughes]

I've tried the Denon 1720 and was very impressed with the picture and sound but I did think the disc spinning mechanism was noisy. I could always hear it spinning, especially when using it for MP3 playback.

I encountered the same problem with the more expensive Denon 1920, so both went back to the shop and I'm waiting for the "perfect" player! I was hoping the new 494 was the one, but doesn't appear so - perhaps the new Pioneer 696 will be!

I'd be interested to hear if your new Denon is also noisy or if I just got a couple of "bad" ones!

I bought the denon 1720 last week to replace my ailing old Tosh 210.

Very pleased with it at the moment - good build quality, excellent sound and picture, surpassing my old machine. With the NTSC-PAL 60 decoder included, I can now also watch my R1 discs in colour, which is a big bonus.

I haven't noticed noisy disc spinning. I've just stuck an ear to the machine and I can hear it now, but not from where I normally sit (about 2m away), or during disc playback with the volume up. It doesn't seem excessive or unusual to me cf. to my other players, CD recorder etc. The machine "box" is quite light and hollow-sounding though, so perhaps disc noise depends on what it's placed on top of and whether or not it's completely level?

Only thing I don't like is the large size and layout of the remote control, which makes it harder to use if you have small hands like me. I can live with this though.