denon dvda1ud

[grassy]

I am getting proceedings underway and purchasing the denon dvda1ud universal player prob around july or august, and am wondering if anyone has seen one, or know a thing or two about this player. I have seen a clip on youtube of this, but cant understand the technical lingo. I understand that it plays a wide range of discs and thought it would be the ideal player to match the avp and the amp. I have decided to get the poa last and get this before the amp. 1 player for all does sound tempting. Regards Grassy

[Bluroo]

Grassy, Have read a glowing review in an English mag. I have an older Denon universal and its performance has been great but aging now (no BD or HDMI). Wait and get yourself a good demo. Not sure about Region free for this machine.

Have fun investigating BR

[grassy]

Yea thanks BR, i would love to get a demo of one of these units. I am 6 hours north of brisbane and no one in this area would stock one. Having said that, i am going down to brissy in a couple of weeks,so i will make a few phone calls and organise a demo for when i get down there. They weigh around 19.5 kg. WOW. Regards Grassy

[Jake]

Grassy, I too have an ageing Denon universal. It plays CD, SACD, DVD-Audio, DVD. But alas no BR or HDMI same as Bluroo's.

Speaking for my unit, it is a competent player, and when it hit the market was one of the best DVD players, but it's sound on the music discs was never great, just good. Having said that maybe they have improved with time, your ears will tell you if you can get to compare it with a good dedicated music player.

Do you intend to listen to SACD, DVD-Audio discs? If not then maybe the machine is overkill?

Cheers,
Jake

[grassy]

Grassy, I too have an ageing Denon universal. It plays CD, SACD, DVD-Audio, DVD. But alas no BR or HDMI same as Bluroo's.

Speaking for my unit, it is a competent player, and when it hit the market was one of the best DVD players, but it's sound on the music discs was never great, just good. Having said that maybe they have improved with time, your ears will tell you if you can get to compare it with a good dedicated music player.

Do you intend to listen to SACD, DVD-Audio discs? If not then maybe the machine is overkill?

Cheers,
Jake

G'day Jake, yea i would like to get into the world of sacd even for the experience of listening to something different. I have always been the basic listener and now after owning the avp, it has opened my interests in other directions. I am pretty sure there is a whole lot of audio out there that i have not experienced yet.(after all these years). Also i would not mind going all out and trying to come up with the best sound possible for this great cinema set up i have out the back here.I have had this great room for years with discontinued gear, so it makes great sense to move on and upgrade. When i get this amp and the a1ud it will all fit in nicely. I have the avp set up and did some measurements last night and it sounds great as i have mentioned in the recievers section.So when you want to come over just give me a ring and i think you will like what you hear.

[Cody]

wow, the A1UD, AVP and POA - thats a dream combo!

like the AVP/POA, the A1UD is a statement piece, the best denon could make and the best blu-ray universal available at any price (in fact it was also the first blu-ray universal available).

id suggest its title has since been pinched by the Marantz 9004UD (RRP $9999, same as the A1UD), which is actually based on the A1UD, but adds components borrowed directly from the Marantz SA-7s1, which according to Marantz, make it sound basically just as good as the SA-7. the tradeoff is you lose Denon Link 4, which gives you a means of sending DVD-A, SACD, PCM, plus Blu-Ray HD audio codecs digitally and in native form, with jitter reduction.

in theory, this should mean the marantz has the edge for audio over analogue whereas the denon has the edge for movies & multi channel audio etc. otherwise they should be basically the same.

FYI - the denon and marantz can be purchased from singapore and sent here for under A$4k. apparently they have region B players available now as well.

another good alternative is the new Denon 4010UD, which is also apparently very good for video and audio, but lacks the balanced design of the A1UD. RRP on that is $3.5k.

[grassy]

Wow, cody thanks for that info mate, that was good to read. I really do like music, but i lean slightly to the home theatre side of things a little more and it is good to know that the A1UD will be great for the job. Concert dvd's are my next choice, so for what i have been told about this player so far, it has been all positive. I was looking at purchasing the avp and the poa from singapore origionally and was told from a sales person over there that for both it would be $14,000 but i had to get them over here myself and only get singapore warranty.

[Cody]

hehe, i reckon i'd get the A1UD if i had the AVP as well. just thought id throw the marantz out there though as its really the only competition.

re: importing, the problem with most of the shops in asia is that they are basically cash and carry. there is one though that will ship to aus and as a result they seem to do quite a lot of business with people here. they are called KEC sound and there is a good thread over on dtvforum.info in the HT section with further info. a member over there (to give you an idea of cost) recently purchased the marantz 9004UD for about A$3.7k from memory (delivered). also, you do in fact still have your warranty, its just that you have to send it back to singapore, which would likely cost you a couple of hundred.

anyway, not trying to talk you into importing! there are big margins on this calibre of kit, and im sure CAV would look after you. imo the piece of mind and local support (especially with setup) are also worth something.

one thing i forgot to mention earlier, some people are holding off on big ticket Blu-Ray player purchases, due to 3D/HDMI 1.4 being on the horizion (could start to appear as early as this year). there are plenty of threads around the place (AVS etc) discussing the pros and cons of this, so i wont go into it. but might be worth considering if you think you may want to be a early adopter of 3D.

anyway, all the best with it.