Tom,
Thanks for sharing!
I'm little confused after reading your post though.
The Tag has better depth in the picture, better colour and more detail. There aslo seems to be more resolution on offer.
The Denon's picture is soft by comparison. It is immediately pleasing to the eye, but after 20 minutes or so this wears off and you are left wondering what you are missing, so to speak.
Ok.
Testing both players using AVIA, the 200 TVL resolution pattern through the Tag shows the side effects of the extra A-D / D-A conversion by showing noise in two of the four circles. Wether or not this noise is visible on DVD Video is another matter however. The Denon is noise-free up to 6.75mhz.
This is my confusing part.
When the Tag shows noise in AVIA's resolution pattern due to the extra A-D/D-A conversion, how do you claim that "There aslo seems to be more resolution on offer." ??
As I understand it, loss in resolution to a certain degree from going through extra A/D, D/A conversion is inevitable. So.. it should be other way around ?
Also... could you be more specific on softness of Denons ?
Because this is exactly what I thought as well.
Well.. I've compared (very well) my HTPC(Radeon7500), and Denon DVD-A1.
When I compared Denon A1's picture with my HTPC, I also initially noticed the softness in comparison. Though carefully comparing for quite awhile made me realise that none of fine details present in my HTPC are lost in Denon due to the softness.
Furthuremore, I believe the Denon's softness is actually due to the noise-free picture like you said. (very good S/N Ratio.)
IMHO, it is mostly possible that the tag 'looks' sharper than denon in comparison because the picture from the tag is slightly noisier than Denon
Tom, because 1st part of the quote, and 2nd part of the quote do not seem to add up, and makes me confused, your clarification would be greatly appreciated.
Again, thanks for sharing your valuable experience, and opinions !