Page 58 - Hi-Fi_News_-_December_2020 video

SACD player/USB DAC and amplifi er
Made by: Sound United/D&M Holdings, Kanagawa, Japan
Supplied by: D&M Audiovisual Ltd, UK
Telephone: 02890 279830
Web: www.denon.co.uk
SACD PLAYER/AMPLIFIER Prices: £2799/£3199 (SACD/amp)

Denon DCD-A110/PMA-A110

A 110-year history makes Denon a record-holder in the hi-fi industry – and it’s marking
that landmark with an Anniversary series that includes this very fine disc player and amp

Review: Andrew Everard Lab: Paul Miller

i-fi companies marking capability, as there is on the Marantz SACD digital and analogue stages, all the way

anniversaries is nothing new 30n [review in HFN Jan ’21]. What you get back to dual transformers.
– indeed, it seems something is a player able to handle either SACDs or

Hcrops up almost every month to CDs, plus CD-R/RW discs carrying files up to TALKING CLOCKS
mark some celebration, from 25 years of 48kHz, or DVD±R/RW media with files at up Meanwhile, conversion is in the hands

the Bowers & Wilkins 600 Series upwards. to 192kHz, and DSD64/128. of four Burr-Brown/TI PCM1795 DAC
However, few brands have the history to Beyond that, there’s not much to using chips, with two per channel operating in
warrant an anniversary as signifi cant as the DCD-A110 player, aside differential mode, fed
Denon, for this year the Japanese company from its ‘Pure Direct’ mode ‘The premium by the latest version
marks not merely its centenary, but a full which switches off the of the company’s
110 years in business. digital outputs and display silver-grey sophisticated Ultra
It’s doing so with a range of products, in the quest for better AL32 digital processing
all carrying ‘110’ model numbers, from sound via less interference. graphite fi nish [see PM’s Lab Report,

an AV amplifier and a phono cartridge to However, there’s a lot of p63], interpolating and
the £2799 DCD-A110 SACD/CD player heavyweight engineering sets them apart’ upsampling incoming
and £3199 PMA-A110 stereo amp we under the bonnet here. PCM up to 32x. The
have here. Incidentally, the £499 DL-A110 The player uses Denon’s SVH (Suppress player also uses separate clock oscillators
moving-coil can trace its lineage all the Vibration Hybrid) transport mechanism, for 44.1kHz and 48kHz-centric inputs to
way back to the DL-103 of the 1960s! mounted low in the player, featuring a suppress jitter, and dispenses with the
die-cast aluminium loader, hefty mounting DACs’ onboard analogue filtering in favour

APPROVAL RATING brackets and an additional copper top of a fully-discrete stage of in-house design.
The specially ‘tuned’ 110th anniversary plate to add rigidity. There are separate Like the player, the PMA-A110 amplifi er
series draws on existing models, notably power supplies too, deployed for the also uses Ultra AL32 processing and the
the DCD-2500NE [HFN Jul ’16] and PMA-
2500NE [HFN Aug ’16] – and some items
made for the Japanese domestic market, in
the form of the DCD/PMA-SX11 and DCD/
PMA-SX1 ‘Limited’ models. The premium
silver-grey graphite finish sets them apart

from the mainstream lineup, as does the
‘110 Anniversary’ logo, and each unit
comes with a certificate of authenticity

stamped with the approval of Denon’s
head engineer [see PM’s interview, p61].
Made in Denon’s factory in Shirakawa,
Japan, these are not ‘limited edition’
models, but are available for a limited time.
Unlike stablemate Marantz, which
believes in having all the digital work done
by its disc players at this level, leaving
its amplifiers as purely analogue devices,

Denon’s DCD-A110 player is just that – a
player – with outputs on analogue RCAs
and optical/coax digital. There’s no sign of
any digital inputs here, let alone streaming

RIGHT: DCD-A110’s mech [centre] plays CD,
SACD and DVD-ROM discs. Intel Cyclone 10 DSP
hosts Denon’s ‘Ultra AL32’ upsampling, feeding
two TI PCM1795 DACs per channel [far right].
Filtering/analogue stage is all-discrete [top right]

58 | www.hifi news.co.uk | DECEMBER 2020