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Yesterday I had a chance to listen to a super +$33,000 DVD-Audio set-up consisting of Holfi Power 8-2, 8-3 power amps, Holfi Pre 5.1 pre amp, Dali Euphonia speaker series (MS5 as fronts) and Denon’s DVD-A1 DVD-Audio player (DVD-9000 in US I think).To test various elements I brought about 10 DVD-A’s and the first one I popped in was Denon’s “Sonic Boom”. To my surprise nothing was coming out from the center and rears even though all displays clearly indicated “5.1”. A shop assistant told me that they had experienced this problem with Denon DVD-3800 but he didn’t know that the A1 also had the same problem.
Out of the 10 DVD-A’s I brought, the A1 had this problem with 2 of them (embarrassing that the Denon DVD-A disc was one of them). Is this a well known Denon Problem? I never heard about it before.
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Well, apart from that I was a bit disappointed with what I heard. This was a +$33,000 set-up in a dedicated listening room, albeit the set-up was optimized for movie watching I was still expecting to be blown away by the sound. I was not getting a convincing soundstage, the sound was a little muffled and there was a huge bass resonance problem right where the couch was placed.
How much of this was caused by poor placement and the room vs the equipment itself, I will leave unsaid. I think I will give the system the benefit of the doubt, but as the set-up’s are right now my moderate $6,000 system would squash this “dream-system”.
Follow Ups:
Yikes! You did not set-up the unit for multi-channel copy-protected DVD-A playback!!Here’s how:-
Make sure you set the "Pure Direct" mode — i.e. press "PD Memory" on the remote, and set the dig output to "off" for "Mode 1", but leave the video on. [This will enable you to play all copy-protected DVD-As in multi-channel mode through the six analog outs]
Then set the knob to "Mode 1" at the bottom-right of the fascia, accordingly. Consult the manual too.
The only thing you may need to change again, is when you need to output Dolby, DTS (or also perhaps Redbook 16/44.1) digital signals through a SP/DIF (or optical Toslink) dig-out to your receiver’s digital input. In which case, what you do is just turn the "Pure Direct" knob counter-clockwise, back to the "off" position".
And whenever you want to unleash its wonderful DVD-A capabilities, go back to "mode 1".
(BTW, I have also set "mode 2" as well, but with all video circuits off too, to increase sound quality. With DVD-As, the Denon automatically plays the multi-channel tracks, so I do not need to go to any TV menus.)
> “Yikes! You did not set-up the unit for multi-channel copy-protected DVD-A playback!!”Not quite sure what you mean about “copy-protected” in that sentence but I did set it up to play multi-channel DVD-A and it played 8 out of 10 DVD-A’s with no problems.
> “Make sure you set the "Pure Direct" mode — i.e. press "PD Memory" on the remote”
I don’t recall seeing PD when I went through the menu so I don’t know what the value of this setting was. Could this alone be the cause of the problems?
> “, and set the dig output to "off" for "Mode 1"”
> > Not quite sure what you mean about "copy-protected" in that sentence but I did set it up to play multi-channel DVD-A and it played 8 out of 10 DVD-A’s with no problems. . . . .// . . . I don’t recall seeing PD when I went through the menu so I don’t know what the value of this setting was. Could this alone be the cause of the problems? < <Yes, you (or the shop assistant) may indeed have set multi-channel in the on-screen menu (as opposed to 2 ch), but you must ALSO set the PD mode from the hand-held REMOTE (bottom-right I think — button is labelled "PD Memory"), not from the on-screen display. (You won’t see any mention of PD modes on the screen menu).
By the way, you DON’T need to set the dig-out to "off" on the SCREEN. You can leave that on, ‘coz you might need it for Dolby/DTS/Redbook output to a 7.1 receiver, for films etc.
Rather, to fully enable DVD-A you need to set the PD mode from the remote, and then turn the button to that mode (i.e. Mode "1").
Thanks! I will try it the next time. It would be funny if that is all it takes; the shop assistant was going on about software updates to solve the problem.
Do you own the A1/9000? Have you experienced sound degradation with Pure Direct off?
there was significant sound degradation when Pure Direct was "off" and digital out was "on"the denon website has instructions on how to configure the pure direct settings for optimal performance on DVD-audio and watching normal dvds. i strongly suggest you follow them.
Hi Lars,I have Denon DVD3800 and I can tell you this - you not only get 5.1 you will also get much better sound! Example, a friend of mine have Elvis 30 #1 Hits (DVDAuido) and he said it sounds terrible.. Then we fix it as Martin said... It's incredible how good it sounds! I also check out some of my Silverline (many people aren't saying any good for them) they sound _much_ better!
I've got the -3800. It's got exactly the same user interface operating system as the -9000/A1.> > It would be funny if that is all it takes . . . // . . . Have you experienced sound degradation with Pure Direct off? < <
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