Denon 3910 Universal Player - Opinions?

Bwhite, thank you for the detailed response. My current redbook is the Rega Jupiter 2000 which, to me, has been a consistently satisfying player - it has always conveyed the soul of the music while providing what I feel is the perfect amount of detail that is only limited by your choice of upstream gear.

The lure of the 3910 is definitely its much aclaimed video performance - however at ~$1200, I do need for it to perform at a sufficiently high level at the audio end of the spectrum so I can let go of the Jupiter. The fact that it has HDMI outputs is a plus as well, but again, video is secondary.

Ah! the joys of optimizing your system subject to the constraint of alternative demands on your $....

Hi Srama - you might give the 3910 a try if you can negotiate an in-home demo.

Bwhite: Are you familiar with the Denon 2900 at all? If so, how would you compare the sonics between it and the 3910 on redbook? Sean
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Hi Sean - Originally I had intended to buy a 2900 to have it modified by John Tucker but... I am really, really tired of getting the "best" player only to have it superceded by the next best thing. So... I went for the 3910 knowing that John Tucker had just started working on mods for the unit.

I've never listened to the 2900 so I cannot comment. I have however read the AVS Forum where folks who own both the 3910 and the 2900 seem to believe the stock 3910 exceeds the performance (sound and video) of the stock 2900.

The latest review of the Exemplar modified Denon 2900 on the 6moons website is exciting - makes me very hopeful about upcoming mods for the 3910.

Sorry I don't know more about the 2900. Perhaps the AVS Forum DVD section may give you some additional insight.

"SACD performance is not as good as Marantz SA-1 or Sony SCD-1, better than Marantz SA-14, XA-777ES"

Interestingly, I thought the SA-14 killed the Sony SCD1 and XA777es on redbook and bettered them in SACD playback, and have a few friends that have sold their SA-1's for SA-14's, and some that favor the SA-1 overall. Many feel the SA-14 sacd playback at least equals the Esoteric DV50's, whoes playback many gush over. Goes to show just how vital that putting the gear into your own system really is! Not that reviews are useful, just careful never to take them as gospel, and make sure all comparisons offered are direct A/B, not just by memory as I see so often, which is VERY misleading.

I have no vested intrest in any of these machines personally, as a Modwright sig truth SACD1000 and Benchmark Dac owner, having owned and sold all of the above machines, including the lackluster Denon pieces (2900 and 5900...yuck) :)