looking for a new source: denon 2900 or philips 963

[dougbrad81]

hi,
i'm going to make some upgrades for sources. my former source was the philips 963, but i gave that to my dad. now i'm conflicted as to whether to get the denon 2900 or buy another philips 963. i would love to have a dvd-audio player. redbook quality on the denon is not a concern, as i am getting a bel canto dac 2. what i was most curious about is the sacd playback on the denon 2900. is it superior the philips 963 or about equal? my range is no more than a $1000, so any other recommendations would be appreciated.

 

[Musicfan123]

I would like to know that as well.

If anyone has any comments on how either the Philips or the Denon unit performs with CD playback, that would be great too.

 

[tortie]

Interested as well. Im about to buy a DVD source in a weeks time and Im caught up between the two.

 

[mad3d]

IMHO the Denon 2900 has beautiful audio out, especially with Hi-Res source such as SACD and DVD-A. I use it both with a 7.1 system and my corda ha1-mk2, beyer dt880 setup and it sounds excellent on both.

 

[Tuberoller]

The Denon 2900 is a great player as is the Philips 963. The Denon has better bass(deeper and more dynamic) than the Philips in all formats. The Upsampling feature on the Philips helps it perform a little better than the Denon with redbook playback on some recordings. I mean that the Philips' upsampling is sort of a mixed bag. I works very well on most recordings but actually makes others sound worse and must be switched off. It does different things on most recordings. On some it adds some extension and "air" in the treble and with other recordings it enhances midrange imaging and adds space between instruments and vocals. The Denon performs well as a redbook player but I have heard better for the price. It has great,deep and tight bass but lacks the midrange performance of the Philips and only matches the non-upsampled treble extension of the 963.

On SACD playback the Philips is bettered by the Denon only in bass impact. The Denon does big bass and does it nice and tight. The Philips is no match for the Denon in bass performance. I like the SACD playback of the Denon slightly better because the great bass helps improve low level detail and adds substantial impact that the Philips just can't match.

The Philips does'nt do DVD-A and this is where the Denon shines. It the best DVD-A player I have heard,especially in multi-channel playback. It has incredible extension at both ends of the frequency and is as good as any high-end player I have heard in terms of bass performance in the DVD-A playback mode.

If you are ever gonna use a player for DVD vidoe playback then the Philips is the only way to go. The picture is incredible and it's almost embarrasing how much better it is that the Denon and all the other universal players I have used in my system. the Philips has the very best DVD video picture I have ever seen and by a very large margin.

I know,tough choice. The Philips is that good but the Denon is no slouch.

 

[dougbrad81]

Thanks for the info, tuberoller. pretty much convince me to get a denon 2900. on an unrelated topic, have you heard the bel canto dac2? is the upsampling clearly superior to that of the philips?

 

[Musicfan123]

Thanks for all the info, they are really helpful.

However, is upsampling the new thing to get for CD playback?

To me, you get 16bit in, you get 16bit out. It's as simple as that. You don't get more source information by upconverting.

I am not an engineer, am I wrong?

 

[tortie]

Thanks for the usual great mini-review Tuberoller! As I plan to watch motstly DVDs , I'll be going for that 963.