Denon at £2500?

J

JetJockey

Guest
Has any body seen the £2500 Denon DVD A1XV in action? Is it really worth the Money? :oops:

Ask a silly question. How does the new 1920 stand up against it (or not), has any body seen either one of them (or both) working.

Does this top of the range DVD player have any of the problems of the 3910, or is this new Hollywood chipset in a different league?

Best regards, Gerald. :)
 
You dont think they would make a player for £400 and then charge £2500 for it, do you.
Of course it is worth £2500, to denon........
Wheather it is worth £2500 to you, is up to you.
That is deff one player and price that would need some serious demo time.

I'm sure it would impress, if you have the right equipment at home.
But asking to compare it to the 1920 is just madness........
Do you really think they would make a player for £2500 that is just as good as the 1920......???
If all you have got is some crappy 32" TV then get the 1920.....but if you have decided that your home cinema deserve's more than an 32", then go ahead and demo it.
Asking for comparrison's against the 1920 is just madness......IMO.
 
JetJockey said:
Does this top of the range DVD player have any of the problems of the 3910, or is this new Hollywood chipset in a different league?

Best regards, Gerald. :)

What 'problems' does the 3910 have? :)
 
Well!!

Just had a chance to re-visit the forum and check out reply to my earlier query.

Obviously Chris is having an off day :(

The question was perfectly valid or I would not have asked it! :lesson:

I have, on more than one occasion, compared top end players to midrange players and found not a great difference. I was particularly interested in the new dennon because of it's new Chipset. However....... £2500 is a lot of money with HD DVD on the horizon, hence my question:-

Is it worth it when I can buy a 1920 for £250 to tie me over?

Is the difference between them chalk and cheese or not a lot.

I was hopeing for a constructive answer not a Dennon sales presentation!

Regards, Gerald. :)
 
Wouldn't it be great to do a "blind" test on this vs something like the £170 Oppo?...PJ :)
 
I had the A1xv here to demo and while it is pretty impressive i decided not to pay out the money for it. In a word its not worth the money. It is not alot better than some of the rivals priced at around £1000. You are paying a premium for the HQV stuff. (bar deinterlacing issues you would be suprised how close a much cheaper HDMI player can get to the overall image)

My reasoning also falls this way because the onboard HQV stuff is the bare minimum Denon could get away with. there is also no control of native resolution etc. Also a highlite of HQV is supposed to be how it can make a bad dvd look alot better. but i found playing too much with the A1xv`s enhancments made the image worse (as the avias test patterns showed) although some DVDs did benefit to a small extent.

With the HQV and Gennum based scalers/deinterlacers about to be released the purchase of this product would be a mistake unless you wish to just plug and play. But if you are after a great image with some flexbility
and use of better HQV filters this would be where to spend your money.

I would spend on a cheaper well respected dvd player, one that can do Interlaced HDMI (or a good candidate for an SDI MOD) and buy a class scaler/deinterlacer. The benefits will be far greater and your other sources can benift as well. + if you get SKY HD or hidef-DVD you should have what you need to go

My 2 Cents
 
Spend the £250 to tide you over.
 
Yep if you dont own a quality HD display, then spend £250.
If you have a quality 720p display ie projection then spend more
 
well personaly i dont buy a dvd player for sound quality as i have a dedicated audio set up for that, but i would say the A1xv is in line with a £500-£800 cd player if thats any use. SACD was very good but its a worthless format. Film sound is as good as any quality dvd player. ie you will not notice an improvment.

More important i would be more concerned of the reliability of the unit as there have been problems but i dont know how extensive that has been. More likly the usual for Denon amount

This is a very good DVD player. But not as special as it could be. It should be £1800 no more
 
monotone said:
Why there's no mention of sound quality?

Because the thread starter asked if anyone had 'seen' it, and went on to discuss its Hollywood chipset. That leads me to believe he is interested in a DVD player and is either not too bothered about audio or, like Gandley, does audio elswhere. If that is the case, a cheaper player is his best option because why pay for audio capabilities you will not use?

I wonder if Denon could ever bring themselves to build a 'user specified' flagship machine. Video (and bitstream) only or video and audio. Just a thought.
 
I have long argued for a HQ digital transport. Digital and audio outs ONLY. It would save LOADS of money and enhance quality. Almost every one uses digital audio connection for DVD players and now digital is the way forward for video as well.
 
We bought it cos it still supports multichannel SACD. For Stereo SACD, we have a separate player for it (We have quite a sizeable SACD collection). After testing, the SACD quality is pretty similar to Marantz DV9500. CD/SACD players are always better without the video component, unless with an external DAC.

Have to admit that we got it under £1,800, which was favourable with an option for DVI/HDMI (future proof for a projector later). And, I don't think HD will happen as fast as everyone's hoping for. And... there's always ebay, if upgrade is needed :)

When tested the other night for DVD, was really impressive with the clarity & details, especially at lower volume.
 
Nic Rhodes said:
I have long argued for a HQ digital transport. Digital and audio outs ONLY. It would save LOADS of money and enhance quality. Almost every one uses digital audio connection for DVD players and now digital is the way forward for video as well.

For people who are really using it as a universal player, CD always sounds fuller, more depth, with analog connection.
 
I was talking about DVD players and not CD players or even universal players unless they really get their act tohether with HDMI (clk signal). Everyone uses them as digital transports but buys them stacked full of analogue stuff, which they then don't use.
 
I think alot of people are using dvd players as cd player though, judging by the people around me. So, there's a demand for these analog plugs.
 
certainly the demand is there for both options.
 
Talking of displays, I have just sold my Panny 42" PWD7 and am looking for a replacement. It will have to be HD Ready such as the Panny 8 series or the Fuji 50" HD.

I was wondering what DVD Player would then do the HD display justice really.

I am warming to the suggestion to buy a good scaler though. I guess that would benefit all signals fed through it! Which one though, Lumagen, Crystallio????? :confused:

Thanks, Gerald. :)
 
personaly i would take the new pioneer plasmas which realy have improved no end. They go as black as panasonic now. But thats just my choice.

Lumagen is an excellent choice, as they keep there products updated more than anyone other company. Theres quite a few new scalers/deinterlacers coming though that have the HQV and Gennum based chips, not to mention updates from DVDO which are more HDMI friendly.
Its somthing you will have to do a fair amount of homework on, but the new vantage HD has a few nice features for plasma owners.
I think Crystallio do a thing called a plasma enhancer but im not quite sure what it does but could be worth a look.
It realy comes down to how much you are prepared to spend but the lumagen HDP should be a starting point.
 
Nic Rhodes said:
I have long argued for a HQ digital transport. Digital and audio outs ONLY. It would save LOADS of money and enhance quality. Almost every one uses digital audio connection for DVD players and now digital is the way forward for video as well.

Well Tag pretty much did that with the DVD32 :)
 
But now we could have a player just with HDMI out produced for how little? Personally I would like to see SPDIF, SDI as well but that would be cheap to add. It would loose much of the unnecessary cost and deliver the goods. And for how little money? Tags solution was certainly great in it's day.
 
Hi, ive been reading through this thread and excuse my ignorance on such matters but you talking about the Audio & DVD being separate.

By being seperate, do you mean using Digital out from the DVD to the Amp to decode and playback? If so are all DVD players the same when it comes to producing digital audio output and is it only the quality of the amp that is important?

I have just purchased a Denon DVD 1920 and Denon AVC A11XV Amp (I know they are in a different price league but just wanted something to tide me over until blueray or other HD players are available)

Am I better off connecting the 5.1 external analogue output from DVD to the Amp or use the digital coax and let the Amp decode it (THX etc.)?

Thanks in advance
 
Currently DVD players can output audio in analogue and digital. With your player the audio stages in your amp are better than the DVD player then a digital output is advantageous. (SACD and DVD A can only do this via HDMI type interfaces). Most DVD and CD audio will come out of the RCA ‘coax' (as SPDIF) or Toslink connector. This just replicates the audio outs and therefore we have two parallel systems.

Wrt video the situation is very similar. We have several analogue outputs (composite, svideo, component and RGB). We also have DVI / HDMI on the digital side (and bods like me mod players for SDI).

These systems run in parallel and cover a vast range of sockets on the back of the player. In theory as we all move to digital, we could do this with two connectors, one for audio and one for video (SPDIF and SDI). In practice it is more likely to something like DVI / SPDIF or a single HDMI or HDMI / SPDIF. The analogue interfaces take the majority of the cost and component on the players and for most people they are redundant. Now days some will use a coax SPDIF for audio and a HDMI / DVI for video. What I suggest is that the player just has those two and is therefore cheaper.

Re your situation, although digital interfaces also effect the sound and as the stages in your amp are much better than your player I would use the digital connection for CD and DVD. With SACD, DVD A you will need 6 analogue leads I am afraid.
 
I'm with you Nic. I've just bought an lcd TV with HDMI and have been looking out for a new DVD player to go with it. All the decent makes keep going on about their audio/video DAC's and how good they are. I DON'T CARE!!!! Just do whatever digital processing you have to, and send the signal out of the HDMI socket. Surely there are enough people out there now with HDMI/DVI enabled sets to justify it, and we would probably get something twice as good for the same price.

John.
 

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