SACD/DVD-A Anyone tried Yamaha or Integra?


In a followup to my other post on budget universal players, has anyone tried the Integra DPS 8.3 or Yamaha DVD-S2300? I look forward to your reviews. Thanks.

-Kevin
kemp
Well I'm not saying Denon is THE BEST player I'm just saying with a street price of $800.00 I would love to see anyone with a budget top the price to performance ratio of the 2900. And I'm talking about planet earth videohydra, the Silicon Imaging Denon uses has won numerous rewards it's the same imaging that the also so highly regarded DVDO line doubling unit uses.
I cannot afford an expensive universal right now, and I don't want two separate boxes for dvd-a and sacd, both of which formats I want. And I don't need cd since I have an excellent high end system. Hence I recently bought the Denon dv2900 after its good online reviews.

In my house, the 2900 gets about 8x its cost in associated audiophile paraphernalia, including interconnects at 3.5x its price, power cord, line filter and vibration control. And I have been enjoying its SACD and DVD-A a good deal, thank you - nice staging, lively and dynamic, and musically communicative. It lacks the detail, texture, and very fine stage perspective of my main front end, but it is remarkably good at this price point and lets me listen to the excellent high rez discs I own. In comparison, I used to own a Pioneer 47a, and that was a whole different issue - flatly unlistenable on a high end system.

Just turn off your audiophile flaw-detection filter for a while, relax and listen to the music, and you may find a tricked-out Denon 2900 to be an enjoyable interim product while saving capital for that EMM Labs or Meridian system.

Reviewed at enjoythemusic.com, under Viewpoint, by Bill Gaw. Choice of power cord is important with this player.
So, one has to spend $7000 on cables and platforms for the 2900 to sound good (but not great)? Uh....right. Why not buy a TRIVISTA, Esoteric or even the EMM labs to begin with if you're going to sink that much money into hi-rez. Sorry, Flex, but you're logic escapes me on this one....
You don't have to buy the 11,000 Linn Unidisk to realize astounding performance on CD, SACD, AND DVD-A. At half the price of the Linn, the Esoteric DV-50 will outperform the majority of CD/SACD players and outboard converters. I know. I bought one, and it is the most musical player I have yet heard on all the formats!
Sorry, Socrates, what I'm saying is that I have this equipment available because that's the way my high end system is set up so that's what I use, and the Denon sounds good this way. I just added it to my main system and routed the output to my preamp.

I haven't tried the Denon any other way so I can't take responsibility for how it sounds if you treat it like midfi. (My post wasn't meant to be a review, so I didn't test its characteristics except for power cords, which are important.) The link I added is a serious review and gives some detail.

But as an audiophile, you are likely to have excess interconnects, power cords, vibration control, a line filter etc. Free space on your regular rack? An old Neuance shelf? Enough power cords to decorate a Xmas tree with? As far as the TRIVISTA , the same problem exists. After you buy the $7000 unit, you will still have to add interconnects, vibration control, a/c filtration etc.