Denon DCD-1650 CD Player
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- Device Type: Player
- Number of Discs: 1
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Denon doesn't make them this nice anymore...
Pros
Alpha Processing, well isolated transport, dual power supplies. Variable line output.
Cons
Audio performance not perfect. Cheap remote. 1650AR discontinued or soon to be.
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Forget the "universal" players for your CD collection. Get one of these DCD-1650ARs' for cheap used. What a bargain. Great sonics for the price. Not perfect, but very good.
I have been involved with Audio/Video for nearly 33 years. Yep that nerd at school that ran that film projector because the teacher didn't know how was me.
I have loved high end audio and all the wonderful contributions it makes for the enjoyment of the music I love. I have been an analog fan longer than I can remember so CD players really were when they came out in the early 80's horrible contraptions of audio.
Fast forward to the late 1990s and the Denon DCD-1650AR changes all that for the much better.
What is inside. Voiding the warranty part, I opened up the double top plate cover and saw a nice compliment of dual E.I. core power transformers. One for the digital and one for the analog stages. The boards for the servo and Dacs and analog stage are neatly laid out. If not any real exotic named devices inside, the attention to detail in construction is very good. High quality polypropylene Caps and the like would only make this player even better though.
A shield above the transport and a sub chassis which it is mounted helps isolate it and help deliver the info cleanly. Also, the bottom plate is double plated steel. I have seen so called great amplifiers and the like that don't have this much capability in the power supplies, and build like this player does.
Back goes on the cover and away we go listening. My associated equipment is a Nad 7400 monitor series reciever, and a Anthem pre-1 triode tube preamp and a Rotel RMB-1095 power amp with my Sota time domain 4 speakers. I run the Sotas bi-wired that is why the multi-channel Rotel amp. Audioquest Bedrock speaker wire and coral interconnects make the connections.
The first thing the Denon does is the low level details like a player costing a lot more. Bass response is fast and tight if a little light weight. Playing my classical organ music, it seems a bit threadbare though tonally right and satisfying. Playing female vocals show a bit of etch on the most dynamic portions of the performance treble wise. The midrange is my favorite part of this player and it really does this well. Playing "Sinatra" makes me really enjoy this player. While this player is not overly "warm" sounding it isn't sterile either. I really like to use the variable output for more transparency, but I noticed it gets a bit hard sounding after a while, and my tube Preamp really helps the 1650 sound clean with out the hardness and edge.
The Toslink optical and Coaxial outputs make experimenting with external DACS easy. This player makes a dandy transport. I borrowed a friends Sonic Frontiers DAC and wow, it really was just too awesome a sound. Too bad I couldn't keep the Sonic Frontiers.
Back to using it as a player again, sound stage was wide but not very deep, but it gave a very large sonic picture of itself none the less.
I use this player in my secondary system now because my Sony XA7ES is now king in my digital hill in my system.
Too bad Denon has forgotten its Stereo roots like a lot of the great manufacturers have today. The "universal" players they have now are only so-so sonically and don't hold a candle to the 1650AR. This is so true that the buzz today is to modify the new players to the most to get them to sound good. The DVD-2900, 3910 today are the tuner sweet hearts of the Audiophile today whom needs all the formats covered in one box. I suspect it keeps family peace too since there isn't a box for each format.
All in all, Denon gets my thumbs up with this player. They did it right in the build, and didn't shortcut the most important part, and that is the power supply, or I mean supplies. Chassis details and lastly the Protein coated drawer is a final tweak for the vibration control process.
This player just feels and performs a lot more expensive than it is.
You can get these used today for very little $$$s. Around $400.00 or so is about right for one of these used. Maybe even less. So before you get one of those "new" players around $300.00 to $500.00 to play your "Redbook" Cd collection, check out that Denon DCD-1650AR. You will be surprised how good it really is. Perfect? Absolutely not, but oh it is so very good anyway.
Thanks for reading.
I have loved high end audio and all the wonderful contributions it makes for the enjoyment of the music I love. I have been an analog fan longer than I can remember so CD players really were when they came out in the early 80's horrible contraptions of audio.
Fast forward to the late 1990s and the Denon DCD-1650AR changes all that for the much better.
What is inside. Voiding the warranty part, I opened up the double top plate cover and saw a nice compliment of dual E.I. core power transformers. One for the digital and one for the analog stages. The boards for the servo and Dacs and analog stage are neatly laid out. If not any real exotic named devices inside, the attention to detail in construction is very good. High quality polypropylene Caps and the like would only make this player even better though.
A shield above the transport and a sub chassis which it is mounted helps isolate it and help deliver the info cleanly. Also, the bottom plate is double plated steel. I have seen so called great amplifiers and the like that don't have this much capability in the power supplies, and build like this player does.
Back goes on the cover and away we go listening. My associated equipment is a Nad 7400 monitor series reciever, and a Anthem pre-1 triode tube preamp and a Rotel RMB-1095 power amp with my Sota time domain 4 speakers. I run the Sotas bi-wired that is why the multi-channel Rotel amp. Audioquest Bedrock speaker wire and coral interconnects make the connections.
The first thing the Denon does is the low level details like a player costing a lot more. Bass response is fast and tight if a little light weight. Playing my classical organ music, it seems a bit threadbare though tonally right and satisfying. Playing female vocals show a bit of etch on the most dynamic portions of the performance treble wise. The midrange is my favorite part of this player and it really does this well. Playing "Sinatra" makes me really enjoy this player. While this player is not overly "warm" sounding it isn't sterile either. I really like to use the variable output for more transparency, but I noticed it gets a bit hard sounding after a while, and my tube Preamp really helps the 1650 sound clean with out the hardness and edge.
The Toslink optical and Coaxial outputs make experimenting with external DACS easy. This player makes a dandy transport. I borrowed a friends Sonic Frontiers DAC and wow, it really was just too awesome a sound. Too bad I couldn't keep the Sonic Frontiers.
Back to using it as a player again, sound stage was wide but not very deep, but it gave a very large sonic picture of itself none the less.
I use this player in my secondary system now because my Sony XA7ES is now king in my digital hill in my system.
Too bad Denon has forgotten its Stereo roots like a lot of the great manufacturers have today. The "universal" players they have now are only so-so sonically and don't hold a candle to the 1650AR. This is so true that the buzz today is to modify the new players to the most to get them to sound good. The DVD-2900, 3910 today are the tuner sweet hearts of the Audiophile today whom needs all the formats covered in one box. I suspect it keeps family peace too since there isn't a box for each format.
All in all, Denon gets my thumbs up with this player. They did it right in the build, and didn't shortcut the most important part, and that is the power supply, or I mean supplies. Chassis details and lastly the Protein coated drawer is a final tweak for the vibration control process.
This player just feels and performs a lot more expensive than it is.
You can get these used today for very little $$$s. Around $400.00 or so is about right for one of these used. Maybe even less. So before you get one of those "new" players around $300.00 to $500.00 to play your "Redbook" Cd collection, check out that Denon DCD-1650AR. You will be surprised how good it really is. Perfect? Absolutely not, but oh it is so very good anyway.
Thanks for reading.
