Conference cookie::notes$archive:cd_v1

137.0. "Denon, Nakamichi CD players" by NULL::KINMONTH () Thu Jun 20 1985 23:04

This past weekend I had the opportunity to try out two CD players at home.
The players were the Denon 1800R ($950) and the Nakamichi OMS-7 ($1295).
They were loaned to me by The Natural Sound, Route 9 in Framingham, MA.

One reason that I chose to compare these two was their different filtering
methods. The Nak uses quadruple oversampling and a seperate D/A converter
for each channel. The Denon uses the 44.1 K sampling rate with analog
filters, and (I think) one D/A converter multiplexed between the two
channels. I've read argument after argument about filtering techniques and
phase distortion, etc., and I wanted to see for myself if the difference
was audible. After careful listening to several types of music, I had
to conclude that I could hear no difference between the sound of the two
players. The only time I though (imagined?) I could here a difference
was with solo type string passages, such as string quartet music. I
thought the Nak might have a slightly smoother sound there, but don't take
this too seriously. I also feel that if I didn't know ahead of time which
player was playing, I would be unable to tell the difference with any
statistically meaningful accuracy, even in these string passages.

The features of both players were similar. Both come with remote control.
Both have a 10 digit keypad for direct access of any track. Programming
features were about the same. I didn't have the manual for the Nak, so
I had to figure it out myself. Each could program tracks in any order.
The Denon lets you program up to 15 selections. I don't know about the
Nak. Each allowed a track to appear more than once in a program sequence,
something other players often do not allow. Each has the usual skip f,
skip b, ff, and frev buttons. I liked the Nak much more with the ff and
frev functions. The Denon chopped the music up too much. In fast forward,
you heard about four pulses of sound per second. The gaps between the
pulses were the same length as the pulses, i.e. 1/8 second sound, 1/8
second silence, etc. The Nak, on the other hand, was much smoother,
having much shorter silent sections and a much faster pulse rate (maybe
20 times a second or so). The Nak also played FF and FR at about 5x
speed for around 5 seconds, and then would kick into a faster speed,
say 10x. Putting either player in PAUSE and then using FF or FR
caused a much faster but inaudible scan, somthing like 30x. Again, the
Nak had a 2-speed feature in this mode.

One bad thing about the Nak fast forward and fast reverse functions (and
this really surprised me, I had to try it several times before believing
that it really happened) is that hitting either of these functions while
a programmed sequence is playing erases the sequence! That's right,
you can't fast forward, even within a track, without clearing out any
programmed sequence. The Denon did what I expected: fast forward worked
fine; if I ff'ed past the end of a track, it went on to the next track
in the programmed sequence. If I FR'ed past the beginning of a track,
it went into the previous track in the program.

Both players have the REPEAT function, which repeats the disk, or repeats the
program if present. The Denon has a button marked INTRO. It causes the player
to play the first 10 seconds of each track. The Denon also has an A-B repeat
function that lets you automatically repeat any section (or skip any section if
A>B timewise). The Nak has neither of these functions. 

The Nak has a button marked INDEX which lets you use the keypad buttons
to directly access even the index points. For example, you could go
directly to track 4 index 7 by hitting "4" "INDEX" "7" "PLAY". The Denon
lets you go directly to a track, but to move to a given index point
within a track you have to go to the start of the track and then step
seqentially though index points to the one you wanted. The "go to next
index" function is done by pressing the PLAY and FSKIP buttons together.
Similarily you can go to the previous index point with PLAY and RSKIP.

This direct access to indexes with the Nak made me wonder if you could
program index points as well as tracks, so I tried it. Sure enough, the
Nak would accept track and index into the program. There was one major
flaw in their software though (at least in my opinion). Although part
of a program could say "start at track X index Y", when that index played,
the player would then play to the end of that TRACK, not to the end
of that INDEX. So, if you told it to play track 4 index 5, then track 2,
and finally track 4 index 8, the Nak would start at track 4 index 5,
play all the way to the end of track 4, then play track 2, and then
play from track 4 index 8 all the way to the end of track 4 again.
What I really wanted it to do was play 4 index 5, then go from the end
of index 5 to track 2, then to 4 index 8, and at the end of index 8, stop.
Apparently the logic only looks to see what's next in the programmed
sequence at the end of a track, not at the end of an index.

Both players had a CALL button. On the Denon, CALL would show the total
disc time and total number of tracks when the player was STOPed and
no program was stored. If a program was stored, it would show the program.
If no program was stored and the player was not STOPed, the CALL button
did nothing. The CALL button on the Nak only showed the programmed sequence.
If nothing was programmed, CALL did nothing. The Nak had another button
called REMAINING. Pushing it at any time displayed the number of tracks
remaining to be played (count included the currently playing track which
felt a little odd...) and the total disc time remaining. However, the
REMAINING button did not do anything if there was a sequence programmed
(i.e. the Nak could not add up the time or figure out how many tracks
remained in a program). The Denon was able to add up programed times
to a point. Pressing the CALL button with a program not only displayed
the program sequence, but displayed accumulated time as it added up
the playing times of the individual tracks.

The drawer of the Denon opened and closed noticably faster than the Nak.
The motor mechanism for the drawer was noisier on the Nak. Although the
Nak was noisier opening and closing its drawer, it was quieter during
playback than the Denon. With the speakers off, I could not hear that
the Nak was in play mode from about 5 feet away. The Denon was definitly
noisier, and produced a faint ticking sound. From 5 feet the Denon was
clearly audible. Neither player was noisy enough to intrude upon normal
listening levels.

Both players were very fast seeking for a given track. The Nak was equally
as fast seeking a given index. The Denon, which only steps sequentially
though index points, was surprisingly slow at finding the next index.
It clearly was scanning through the disk data looking, because the longer
the distance (timewise) to the next index, the longer it took to get there.
I put the Denon at the beginning of a fairly long track that had no
index points, and told it to go to the next index. It took quite a while
(maybe 10 seconds or so) before arriving at the next track.

One thing I missed in both players was the ability say something like
"play all tracks except #5". The only way to do that on either player
was to program 1,2,3,4,6,7....  It seems to me much more likely that
a person would want to omit a given track or two than program very
long sequences in oddball orders.

The display on the Denon was a bit more informative than the Nak, especially
with respect to programming. The Nak basically showed only track number
and track elapsed time. It also showed if REPEAT was on, and if a disc was
in. The Denon showed the track number, the current index number, the
elasped time, and the next track to play in the program. It also showed
states of various modes like A-B repeat, REPEAT, INTRO, PROGRAM CALL, etc.

All in all, both players made my system sould better than I have ever heard
it. I'm not sure where I see that the Nak is worth $350 more. It has
direct access to an index, and remaining time at any point. I don't count
the ability to program an index into a sequence because it doesn't do
what you want. On the other hand, the Nak doesn't have A-B repeat or
the INTRO function. I don't really see much use for the INTRO function,
but A-B repeat might be useful. Also, the fact that the Nak zaps any
sequence you've programed if you hit FF or FR really bothers me.

Bravo.

Well done. Have you done the same thing for two CD players which are
in different price category, like one of them costing around $400 and
another one around $1000 (either NAKAMICHI or DENNON). I am more
interested in the 'audiable' difference.

Nagi.

I'm interested in audible difference too.  What is the rest of your
stereo system?  What disks did you use?  Your review was otherwise
very complete.  Thanks for sharing.

Mark

I have done a couple of very informal comparisons between "low end" compact 
disk players and thought I would pass the results along.

I bought the Magnavox 1041 from note #124 (belated thanks to MOTHER::RHINE
and TRIVIA::TABER by the way). I had the opportunity to compare it separately
with the Sony D-5 and the Technics SL-P1. While playing the disk through my
system and listening via speakers I could not hear any differences between 
any of the players. All were impressive, gave the same feeling of presence,
lack of noise, etc. The only differences I found were that the D-5 seemed to 
give less dynamic range when listened to through headphones through my 
receiver. The Magnavox and the Technics seemed sonically on a par. The big 
difference between them is that the Magnavox is heavier, seems more solidly 
built, and that the door opens and closes a lot more smoothly. Whether this 
will make any difference in the life of the player only time will tell. 

My system:

Magnavox 1041 CD Player
Sherwood 7450 Receiver (30 w/ch)
Klipsch KG2 Speakers
Sennheiser HD-420 Headphones (not sure about the number)
CD used for comparison - Liszt Piano Conertos 1 and 2 and Hungarian Fantasy -
Erato (good disk by the way)

Also, I was in Waltham Camera and expensive Stereo while I was looking for
CD players and listened to Beethoven's Emperor played on a $900 NEC player
and a Yamaha CD-2 through a Yamaha amp and $1500 Thiele speakers. Don't
know if it was the CD, the equipment, I have Jello rather than gold between
my ears, or I just plain like my equipment, but I wasn't any more impressed
by what I heard than what I ended up with. I would be very interested also
if somebody has the opportunity to compare a "cheap" ($300-400 list) player
with a "high end" ($1000-1500 list) one.

			Dick Rosenberg

RE .1, .2

I too am interested in audible differences. My belief was that audible
differences, if any, would probably come from different filtering techniques.
I think I convinced myself that I, for one, cannot find audible differences
between most CD players. This has been said by many reviewers, who then go
on to compare features, construction, etc. I can say that the Denon and
Nakamichi both were solidly built, and had quality controls (no pressure
sensitive buttons or similar garbage). And both looked very good. As far
as features go, I think I have noticed other less expensive players that
had all these two did, and maybe more. I was looking at a Yamaha CD-2
today and it looked pretty nice. Unfortunately I didn't have time to play
with it much. If others can comment on Yamaha CD-2 (or others) I'd be
interested (I guess I didn't mention in my reviews that I do not own a
player yet; I'm still shopping).

The system I used was a Denon DRA-750 receiver, and AR-4X speakers. This
is by no means a 'high end' system, but as long as I compared both players
with the same equipment I figure my comments are somewhat valid. I also
listened to each with headphones. I've been thinking that I should really
get new speakers; the AR's are ancient (1968) and are little more than
bookshelf speakers. But I'll tell you, they never sounded better than when
I hooked those two CD players into my system! Maybe I will live with these
speakers a while yet...

The music I used was the following:

String Quartet #15, Beethoven, Smetana Quartet, Denon
Symphony #4, Mahler, Chicago CO, Solti, London
Eye in the Sky, Alan Parsons Project, Arista
Pictures at an Exhibition, Mussorgsky, Chicago, Solti, London
Concerto for Orchestra, Bartok, Chicago, Solti, London
Alexander Nevsky, Prokofiev, Cleveland, Chailly, London

The last three I got at The Electric Grammophone on my way home with the
players. He has quite a selection there. I also noticed he carried the
Denon player for $900 (list is $949).

As for the CD's, I really wish they would start putting index points in.
The Beethoven is my only disc with index marks. The Mussorgsky is actually
all one track (track 2 is Le Tombeau de Couperin by Ravel). Pictures is
an obvious piece for index points, since it consists of 15 or so distinct
'pictures' and 'promenades'.

I'll no doubt be looking at less expensive players soon, so I'll comment
on those too. One problem I have is finding much of a selection around
here (the Boston area). I'm really surprised at how few stereo shops there
are around here. I lived near Chicago for a while (yes, that explains
my preference for Solti and CSO in my choice of CD's) and there seemed
to be a shop on every block out there. I think it's time to start a new
note about what players can be found where....