[greve]

Last week I went against all my principles and bought a high-quality DVD-Player without making a home audition to compare with my previous DVDP . It was very cheap for me to buy but here is the result in short:

I now have a Denon DVD2800MkII (latest top-spec dedicated DVDP) retaling at £750-800 which AFAICS doesn't improve picture quality a bit compared to my 1,5 year old Sony DVP-CX860 300 disc DVD-Changer costing around £500.

So how come that £750 of dedicated high-performance state-of-the-art (or close, at least) electronica can't outperform my built-for-convenience Sony "converted CD-Changer" with presumably mediocre circuit design etc.

I'm using high-quality QED SQART RBG-only cabling for picture and Kimber DV-30 for digital audio. Visualisation is handled by a top-of-the-range (2 years ago) Philips 32" widescreen conventional CRT TV.

What am I doing wrong

[Edit]: The Denon DVD2800MkII recently won a comparison test in a reasonably respectable british magazine (Hi-Fi Choice) against such notabilities as Cyrus DVD 8, Roksan Kandy (or was it Caspian?) and Primare V25

[bubba966]

I don't know if the Denon's are any different in your part of world that what we get here. But my experience has been that they're not great performers.

Last I heard Denon was putting DVD-ROM drives in their players. The only real benefit I was hearing was that it reduced or eliminated the layer change on qual layer discs.

Sony has always been one of the better players for picture quality (as well as Pioneer & some of the better Toshiba's). And I'm guessing that's why you're not getting any improvement with your new Denon over your Sony. Did you try looking at a Sony DVPNS905V? Or maybe even getting an import DVPNS999ES. The 999ES is one of the best looking players I've seen yet.

I might also look at a Pioneer DV-757Ai as that's in about the same price range as your new Denon, yet most likely outclasses the Denon in video performance.

Denon builds/built great CDP's, & receivers. But I've yet to see them get a DVD player put out that's worth buying. I've talked to someone that bought their top end US model. He took it home and found that it didn't perform anywhere close to where it was priced & immediatley returned it to buy a Sony DVP-S9000ES. And the Sony 9000ES isn't quite as good in the video department as the 999ES and maybe not entirely up with the Pioneer DV-757Ai either. But I've not done an a/b with the 757Ai & 999ES yet.