SACD PLAYER DENON DCD-CX3 WOJCIECH PACUŁA Translation: Krzysztof Kalinkowski

The appearance of higher shelf stereo devices in Denon catalog about four years ago heralded a kind of turning point and testified a terrific feeling for the market. Because one year later the inevitable breakdown of the market of home cinema has started. According to the data, last year the turnover in AV components was smaller by over 40% (excluding flat screen TVs). This is a real earthquake. It seems, that the market reached such a degree of saturation, that selling anything related to cinema became an art. Probably a big chunk of this process was the appearance of uncountable amounts of cheap and ultra-cheap devices from China, bought in supermarkets and large wholesalers. Otherwise that in stereo, where a certain level of quality is required, in cheap cinema everything was accepted, as long as it was cheap – in the end the picture was better than from VHS that everybody remembered. And the sound? Let us be a bit euphemistic – not many buyers paid attention to that. So when cheap products were available and also accepted, then many people could switch to home cinema painlessly.

Higher price shelves were also doing OK, but here the case was a bit more complicated. Besides a high quality of the picture the customers started to request good sound. Those were not all buyers, but a large group of buyers, basing on their own experiences or advice from acquaintances (experienced), or being directed by advices from specialist press paid more attention to the sound. And here started the trend, that is gaining strength, and in many aspects is a reactive trend to the AV: the request for good stereo sound. In your mails (the most interesting are published in the “Letters” section) more and more the voice can be heard to show you a trick, allowing to enjoy good cinema and at the same time good stereo. Unfortunately this is a voice calling in the desert, and an advice must call for selling the AV amplituner, front speakers, atc. Meaning a change of the primary concept. As it turns out there is not many AV products, that could handle two channel sound of a CD on an at least reasonable level, and products sounding like their stereo counterparts are not there at all. Point. And if somebody tells you something else, then – unfortunately – he or she is not telling the truth. Actually he or she is passing round the truth by large arc.

That caused a sudden renaissance of the audio. From two-three years a rise in the sales of, seemingly forgotten, stereo devices can be noticed. Let us not fool ourselves – this will not be the same world as before the AV revolution, stereo will not be king anymore, but it seems that a certain level of sales will be reached, that compared to the 70'-90' will be much lower, but will be a real resurrection when compared to the end of the 90' and the first years of the new millennium. And in contrast to the home cinema, where once bought product stays long at home, like a mixer or vacuum cleaner and is treated as a home appliance, the buyers of stereo equipment are in most cases “searchers” - I do not want to use the word “audiophile” as it is not fully the case here – meaning returning clients of audio shops.
But five-six years ago, when the stereo program must have started at Denon, nobody dreamed of that, and editors in chief of many audiophile magazines openly admitted resignation of reviewing of CD players, especially the more expensive ones, as on the market only DVD players will remain, as natural successors of CD players. So somebody in Denon must have taken the right decision. As it seems some influence on that had the fusion of that company with - at that time point fully Japanese – Marantz, where the stereo was always the spine of the portfolio.

Anyway, Denon had an intuition that large companies are not suspected of. They were followed by others, like Onkyo, Sony and lately even Pioneer, which overslept the right moment, and although in the beginning led the changes, this time, concentrated on plasma screens sales, was late. I will not forget the bombastic announcements of a new and bright future under the shields of home cinema, which accompanied the change of the superb and recognizable logo of the company. And? In advertisements the logo returns as a part of a campaign and referral to the best years of stereo.
Based on that background the decision of Denon to present a stylistically appealing, expensive stereo system also should give food for thought. As it seems the moment arrived, in which the more wealthy clients, already possessing plasma and an expensive home cinema system, will like to listen to music on a decent quality level. And those are especially demanding clients, as good sound alone will not be enough – it also needs a decent enclosure. And so we come to the concept of the CX3 system that encompasses the tested SACD player DCD-CX3. The whole system is especially well done, it looks terrific, and is also built like that, and its test, as a complete system, you will find in one of the upcoming Audio issues. Here and now I would like to propose a test of the player alone, which – as it turned out – is capable without problems and complexes be a part of a tasteful stereo system, composed of audiophile, even esoteric components, and it will be the systems pride. It is not a fully universal product, as its sound was tailored for the requirements of the CX3 system, that includes a D class amplituner, with a mellow and delicate sound, as well as speakers of similar attitude, but a thorough choosing of accompanying equipment will allow to pass around the characteristics of the player or even exploit them to our liking.

SOUND

So I explain what I am talking about: the player has a strong treble. Its quality is exceptional, and purity of the sound unusual, but in absolute categories there is a lot of it. In my system, more sensible than romantic it could be heard, but I got used to it in time. On the other hand in the system of my friend, composed of a Musical Fidelity amplifier and Danish Physics speakers, which is probably even more sensible than mine, there was too much of the treble. So the basis for receipt of this product of Denon is its environment. Now we can start the test.

Including the Denon player in a system is an incredible surprise. Listening to the CX-3 system I knew, that the sound is nice, of high quality and worth its money. However separating the player brings us in different areas of ravishment with sound (actually music with good sound, but – OK, lastly HIGH Fidelity OnLine is an audiophile magazine…). The sound of the player is at the same time thorough and saturated. When on the disc Love - The Beatles (Apple/EMI, 80789, CCD+DVD-A) one of the stronger pieces is played, then we have strong bass and a clear, fresh treble. The same could be observed with the disc Kid A from Radiohead (EMI, 27753, CD), where low bass was shown in a saturated way, but also with a very good control. The treble was detailed and thorough, without a trace of being jangling. Very good was the positioning of the instruments. Not only in terms of locating them on the stage, as this was just precise, but also in terms of discriminating virtual sources located close to each other. This was done thanks to a good resolution, but also by clear differences in timbre. This characteristic can be heard on every recording, but was shown best on purist discs, testifying, that the resolution of this frequency range is really above average. The piano from the brilliant disc, of course burned by the Japanese, Bule Monk - Eric Reed Trio (M&I Jazz, MYCJ-30386, CD) was resonant, dynamic, and a bit to the side stood the contrabass, with a clear string hit and full reverb. Very good was also the treble. There is a lot of it – we already mentioned that – what is the main difference between the Denon and the D/A converter DC-1 from Audionemesis or the CD-E5 EWAE player from E-Sound. It is not ultra-precisely defined like from the Lektor Prime, Gryphon Mikado or dCS p8i, as the attack is minimally rounded – minimally, but it is – but the sustain and reverb are splendid and do not allow us to think bad about this frequency range. Frankly speaking, when looking holistically it resembles much more expensive products like for example the Bladelius Freya II.

However Denon is a SACD player, and although the majority of discs in my collection are the Compact Discs, then silently and unwillingly, a significant, counting about 100 pieces collection of Super Audio CDs has grown upon me. In general I am not a fan of this format, I think, that a properly prepared DVD-Audio disc, or better said a “dense” PCM recording reproduces music in more exact way, then a large chunk of the discs sold at this moment like classical music by Pentatone, Alia Vox, MDG, jazz by Mobile Fidelity, Groove Note, FIM and LINN Records, and folk by Stockfisch, just to mention a few record companies, are hybrid SACD/(HD)CD discs, and searching for a specific title I do not think about the carrier, as most of the time it is only in SACD. And even other discs, like lately the collectors editions of Depeche Mode or Genesis discographies, are also issued on this carrier. Where am I going to – subcutaneously, meaning as it should look like from the standpoint of the success of a format (although the battle is lost, but everything is going on by inertia), we become owners of the SACD discs. And if there is an occasion of using them, then why not do it, for God’s sake? We don’t pay extra for that anyway.

Again – Denon is a SACD player. And if it handles CDs exceptionally well, the just with SACDs the sound shows real refinement. The upper midrange, if recorded that way, still stays quite strong, and for example the voice of Diana Krall from the disc Girl In The Other Room (Verve 62046, SACD/CD) was a bit risen, and sounded more as sung from the throat than the diaphragm. The recording itself is partially responsible for this, as tends to emphasize that range, but it was similar with the disc Walking In The Sun - Barb Jungr (LINN Records, AKD 283, SACD/HDCD). So you have to be careful when choosing the speakers and amplifier. The naturalness of sounding from SACD discs is phenomenal; I don’t know if not better than that what I heard from the full-sized player DCD-2000AE of that company. The vividness coming from timbre as well as dynamics showed a slightly softer world than from CD, but it was also more credible. The depth of the stage was not shown as well as from the DC-1 or other more expensive players. However that what is shown on the first or second plane had good consistency and saturation, difficult to reach from digital equipment. Chet Bakers trumpet from the piece “Two’s Blues” (Jimm Hall, „Concierto”, CTI/Mobile Fidelity, UDSACD 2012, SACD/CD) was presented in a saturated way, while keeping splendid textures, definition and shape. And how beautiful sounded the Violator Depeche Mode (Mute, DMCD7, SACD/CD). Although the upper midrange, shown quite strong, had a slightly hard character, but the saturation of the bass, its power and hit, as well as the crispness of all frequency ranges made the Denon worth listening to in at least a few systems – maybe it will be the dreams come true…

DESCRIPTION

The CX-3 system, a part of which is the tested player, consists of three elements: stereo SACD player DCD-CX-3, DRA-CX-3 amplituner and stand mount speakers SC-CX303 (each of the components can be purchased separately). The devices were designed as a set, and together look especially attractive, really splendid. The feeling of luxury, and this is also a part of the image, is fulfilled by the thick aluminum front panels, with deeply cut display windows and deepening for the tray – exceptionally thin, just like in Mark Levinson devices, and also with milled places for knobs and switches. Also the Denon logo is engraved and not printed. The volume knob in the amplifier received a noble finish in the form of a exotic wood ring. Although in Denon devices destined for the Japanese market additions of wood are a standard, but the models encountered outside the land of the samurai usually don’t have such jewelry. The enclosures were done from very well connected, cast aluminum elements, with very rigid two layer plates screwed on top of them. And this although, we have to say it now, those are devices that are narrower than the standard - 430mm – closer to the former midi standard of 300mm. It is not a big thing, but the whole concept of the devices is changed. It is not only a well playing set, but also some sort of functional art, that can be placed where classic devices would never appear. From the audiophile standpoint there is an uncertainty, if such an approach can combine both trends, but the many years lasting mission of companies like Cyrus, Quad and Linn, promoting narrow fronts – should make people think. Not everything small must also be worse…
The player, as stated, is a device capable of playing SACD discs. This is a stereo system, so the device has only stereo outputs. Besides those, on the back plate two more sockets can be found, a RCA and an optical digital output (for PCM 16/44.1, MP3 and WMA only) and an IEC mains socket. Information about times and device status can be read of the very nice red display. At first I thought it is readable enough, but I was wrong. When using the device longer, the fact that the display is not big influenced readability in a negative way. At least it can be dimmed in three steps or even completely switched off. Looking at the devices one cannot resist the feeling, that there is not too much place inside. And that’s the case – in the player, similar to the Cyrus devices of comparable size, majority of the space is occupied by the drive, and the PCB is placed below it. It has to be noticed, that there are additional crossbars inside, mentioned to make the enclosure even more rigid, and in the power supply we find two separate EI transformers – one for the digital section and one for the analog. Very rigid is also the drive itself, as usual with Denon, covered fully by an aluminum plate, here additionally equipped with strips of material dampening vibrations. According to the manufacturer, the cast tray weights 1.4kg! In the digital section we find a classic Sony DSD decoder and a very good D/A converter from Burr-Brown, the DSD1796. This is a very nice, used by Denon in many products 24/192 converter with a separate path for DSD. Similar to other multiformat devices of this manufacturer, also here we have the possibility of turning off the display and digital outputs with the Pure Direct button. It is a pity, that there is no HDCD decoder on board, a decoder that is present in most multiformat devices from Denon. The reason for that is that in AV devices the decoder is a software device (PDM200) and is embedded in the DSP chip, together with Dolby Digital and similar decoders. This chip is missing here… However, there is a clock, specially designed for this application, used by Denon in its most expensive players.

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