To Denon’s DCD-2560 ($750), I say, “you’ve got come a good distance, child!” Positive, it is nonetheless heavy; it is nonetheless a Denon. Nevertheless, the 2560 is a far sleeker unit than my outdated 1800: easier-to-use controls, higher programming protocol, even the transport is smoother in operation. Any person spent a whole lot of time getting this participant to ooze “solidity.” The inner construct high quality is superb, with a nice-sized energy provide and good-quality components. Small-value movie caps and 5532 twin op-amps populate the analog stage, which is AC-coupled to the surface world with what seem like two giant Elna electrolytic caps in parallel with a movie bypass for every channel. Along with the fastened and variable outputs, the 2560 has each Toslink optical and coaxial digital outputs.
Apart from all the standard Each Programming Functionality You will By no means Want, the Denon sports activities one function uncommon in a client CD participant: PITCH CONTROL! Do not chortle! For us guitar gamers, the shortage of pitch management is without doubt one of the worst issues in regards to the CD Revolution; was once, you would decelerate or pace up your turntable to match the pitch of Magic Sam’s “West Facet Soul” to your guitar’s commonplace E tuning whilst you tried to steal as many licks as you would grok. The Denon got here in helpful after I purchased the brand new, posthumous CD of the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Sky Is Crying (Epic EK-47390); as Stevie all the time tuned his Strat right down to E-flat, all I needed to do was tweak the Denon up in pitch to play alongside in E-natch’l, even when the now sped-up guitar licks had been even more durable to cop! Good factor my digits do not creak. But.
20-bit D/A conversion
Technically, the Denon has extra in widespread with the Kinergetics, Thetas, and Proceeds of the world than the everyday Japanese participant. For starters, the 2560 makes use of 4 Analog Gadgets AD-1862 20-bit DACs, two for every channel in push-pull configuration. These DACs are flanked by their attendant MSB trimpots, which Denon hand-trims for highest linearity on the manufacturing facility.
Denon operates these high-quality chips in an attention-grabbing configuration they name “Lambda D/A Conversion”; to reduce the zero-crossing distortion brought on by MSB nonlinearity, the information stream is taken from the digital filter and duplicated so there are two knowledge streams. After including a relentless digital “bias” to every knowledge stream, positive-going for one and negative-going for the opposite, the information streams feed the 20-bit Analog Gadgets DACs, whose analog outputs are then summed; because the bias indicators are reverse in worth, they in the end cancel, however the resultant sign is biased away from the zero-crossing line, eliminating that supply of distortion. The tradeoff (there’s all the time a tradeoff) is that for high-level indicators requiring the complete dynamic vary of the DACs, the Lambda course of is momentarily disabled, the high-level indicators then theoretically masking the residual distortion.
Who’s on foist?
The primary impression the Denon provides is sweet, stable bass copy; one of many CDs that spent a whole lot of time in my system has been the soundtrack to The Commitments (MCA MCAD-10286; reviewed within the January difficulty), and the Denon appeared to have each the tightest and most pronounced bass of any of the gamers reviewed right here. After all, that is electrical Fender P-bass we’re speaking about right here, not some audiophiliac organ recording, so what I am calling bass right here is the 40200Hz vary, I suppose what an actual audio reviewer would name the lower-midbass to the over-easy-hold-the-taters-upper bass/decrease midrange. No matterthe Denon has a high-quality, agency backside finish that endows pop and rock with a satisfying, pulsing basis.
Sadly, that is about all I can enthuse about. As a result of whereas the bass was the perfect of the bunch of the opposite CD gamers I evaluate on this difficulty (footnote 1)the opening sub-bass room noise on the very begin of the Cowboy Junkies’ Trinity Sessioncourtesy of the mighty Muse subwoofer, made my kidneys harmthe Denon was outclassed in nearly all different areas of efficiency. Even after a month of infinite-repeat Motörhead (footnote 2) the Denon had a veiled, chalky midrange that appeared to persist it doesn’t matter what cables I used with it. The excessive finish, too, was off-putting: following a subdued presence vary, the trebles had been arduous sufficient to make me not wish to proceed listening.
Lapis interconnect did a lot to scale back the glare, however the total sound nonetheless lacked life. Joe Henderson’s tenor intro on observe 5 of the Chesky Bros.’ McCoy Tyner disc (New York Reunion), a 3-D live-in-the-room observe by means of the Theta DS Professional Fundamental, turned much less emotionally stirring, as if Joe had been merely warming up as a substitute of actually blowing. Switching to the XLO cable did little to vary issues, the sound nonetheless missing that important harmonic rightness that clues the mind to “Dig This.” And it does not take a $2000 Theta to listen to this high quality, both; the $399 Audio Alchemy DDE has it, the equally priced Rotel RCD-855 has it, even the li’l $299 NAD 5425 a few pages down the river has it. With out that indefinable “rightness,” I discover it extraordinarily arduous to concentrate to the music. Each time I discover myself making an attempt to recollect if there’s something I forgot to deal with at work whereas I am sitting there listening to music, I do know one thing’s desperately mistaken, and that is simply what I discovered myself doing with the Denon.
I will not go a lot into areas like depth, soundstaging, and imaging, as a result of the Denon was disappointing in these areas. Imaging featured inflated center-fill and subsequent to no discrete picture define; on The Trinity Session‘s first observe, Margo Timmins’s vocal, normally very starkly outlined, was obscure and shapeless, altering place as her voice went up and down in vary. I might go on, however it will be merciless; area, the Denon does not do.
Summing Up
To say I used to be stunned by the comparatively poor efficiency of the Denon DCD-2560 is placing it mildly; its litany of superior know-how and use of edge-of-the-art DACs steered better issues, however in observe it sounded fairly mediocre. For practically the identical inexperienced, I received true high-end digital sound with the Audio Alchemy DAC/Rotel 855 transport combo.
Footnote 1: JVC XL-Z1050TN, NAD 5425, Sony CDP-X555ES, and Sonographe SD-22.
Footnote 2: The Denon participant was broken-in for roughly a month earlier than I sat right down to pay attention. I fed it CDs, set it for infinite repeat, and hooked the fastened outputs to a 10k load (you can also make this by soldering a 10k resistor between the sign and floor of an RCA plug, or alternately, you possibly can simply hook the participant as much as an enter in your preamp, turned all the way in which down), which ensured that sign would circulation by means of the audio circuitry, output coupling caps, wire, and so on. If you happen to go away the output jacks unterminated there is no sign circulation, and all you accomplish is a ha’pen’orth’s increased electrical invoice. It is a good strategy to break in interconnects as nicely, though an FM tuner set for interstation hiss places much less put on in your participant.
