The Sound
Contents
The first thing that immediately strikes you – after an intensive burn-in period of two weeks – is the energy and punch. We listened to the Marantz 30 series and this Denon shortly after each other and yes: they’re essentially different. The Marantz focuses on smoothness and the Denon on energy and rhythm. Just a different approach. A different interpretation of the music.
Refinement
But as mentioned before: these PMA-A110 and DCD-A110 bring the refinement we sometimes miss with the 2500. Although we shouldn’t take that out of context. The 2500-series is also nice. It’s mainly on the Focal that we’re going to hear the slight edginess… …but anyway, the question is, who makes that combination? Not many people, we think.
However, we think it’s good to notice that the 1000 euro more expensive PMA-A110 relizes a good audible step-up. Both in terms of amplification and in terms of digital to analogue conversion, an extra ‘shot’ of quality is audible. On the dacs it can be seen in the specifications, but not with the amplifier of course.
If we take out Faithless Sunday 8PM and put the silver disc in the DCD-A110, our jaws drop on the floor: wow… this is really very good! A comparison with the Ambre is… not really a battle. The DCD-A110 gives more fluidity and glow. More ‘meat’ (if you can say that in English)… more ‘oemf’. Yeah, it’s just better. This is really a very good CD player. We close the gap a bit if we let the Ambre play through the Pavane and then go analog to the Denon. But hey: that’s a more expensive set-up. So kudo’s to the DCD-A110!
Matching
Now we’ve already indicated that the Denon has an ‘upbeat’ character. And shows a lot of detail. Matching is therefore important. We do like an open and fast playback with good audible details. So the match with the Sopra No1 is fine by us. The edges on the brighter recordings are still within limits. Think of the older recordings of Sarah McLachlan. With the Bowers 805D3 with the diamond tweeter and the continuum-unit, it gets a little out of hand, we think. The DALI goes well and shows a delicious ‘grunt’ in the bass. Yummy.
You can listen to the samples below or download them.
Samples Denon A110 series
Lossless wav-samples can be found here
Conclusion
The new Denon A110 series undoubtedly offers more than the 2500NE. It brings the refinement we missed in the 2500-series. About the DCD-A110: wow... what a beautiful player that is. Loads of detail and very nice layering... really a statement product.If you like an energetic sound with lots of detail and a lot of sensations, you will love this 110-anniversary. We have no doubt about that. The only thing we don't understand is: where is the streamer Denon? It stops at the 800NE. Why? Finish this line-up with a statement. Come on with that DNP-A110!