None

Sound quality or shall I say lack of.

I don`t know how someone can state that after they removed the headphone output wire that the sound became "less harsh" or "harsh free" and added to the already excellent sound. In my book ANY harshness cannot be construed to equal "excellent" sound. To me excellent should be the absence of harshness, not in spite of it. Consider this to overide my earlier review. I now believe that this player flat out sucks. Everytime I listen to my Sony CDP-CA70ES I get pissed-off thinking how terrible sounding that crappy Denon sounds in comparison. If anybody out there really believes that it sounds good I`d like to know what kind of amplifier ther`re using. Or maybe it`s because they listen to rap or techno music. Denon sucks, but if anybody wants to buy it from me cheap, e-mail me. Oh, and I`m sorry to vent so I appoligize.

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Nothing but the best: Sony ES

Great sound, enjoying the HDCD.

Quality, goofy display, tray mechanism that sounds like a cheap toy.

Thanks to the reviews here, I bought the DCM-370. Sounded great but I soon experienced the skipping problem that others mention. (And yes, the lens was clean!) Eventually the machine would not play at all. Luckily, Uncle'' Stereo in NY gratiously replaced the unit with a new one (it took about two months for the replacement to arrive and cost me about $15 in shipping.) Since then, no problem, knock on silicon! In my opinion I think Denon quality/reliability was better before they relocated manufacturing to China. Caution: IF you elect to buy one of these, be sure you have faith in your dealer''s ability to fix or willingness to replace it if it fails. Cheers!

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Sony & Yamaha.

Sounded great when it worked.

Player progressively mistracked and skipped on many many CD''''s (both HDCD and conventional ''''redbook'''') over a period of many months.

Here is an update on my situation with this problematic unit (I realize many units reviewed here have worked flawlessly, but mine has not). My Denon 370 can now R.I.P. After several months of struggling with it''''s frequent skipping and mistracking on many CD''''s (which played flawlessly on my other 4 CD players in my car and home), I ran out of patience, and recently ran it over with my wife''''s Merc Mountaineer SUV! This was quite cathartic in and of itself, considering the many frustrating and dissapointing music listening sessions that were marred with this unit''''s problems! I must say, my local high end dealer did try and rectify the problem in good faith, and I commend them for this. However, even after having e-mailed and spoken to one of Denon''''s key customer service managers at their CA location, I was not given customer satisfaction, and this is very unprofessional and dissapointing customer service on Denon''''s part. Denon could have EASILY asked me to return the defective player to AudioCraft, and they (Denon) could have simply shipped me a new one. You would think Denon would WANT this player back for ''''research'''' to see what had gone wrong with it (especially given the fact that some others have experienced mistracking with it)! And moreover, you would think that they would want to avoid all the negative publicity I have, and am going to give and spread all over the internet regarding this bad experience. Don''''t they realize they may have prevented the sale of several of these units just by consumer''''s reading my negative feedback posted on various sites? All in all, this is a great player when it works, but mine failed me bigtime, even though it was part of cared for, high-end system with Magneplanars, Hovland preamplification, and a Velodyne sub. For the record, I was no 12 year old who abused the player in any way. It was part of a high-end setup in my low traffic living room with dust covers on the components. This is what I get for patronizing Denon and ''''babying'''' my equipment. I will NEVER buy another Denon product ever again, period!

Denon technology, while inside we noticed the PCM 1732 DAC that combines Burr-Brown and Pacific Microsonics technology on a single chip which is the same as the Rotel RCD-961 single disk player at almost twice the cost of the Denon DCM 370. The Denon DCM 370 has performed flawlessy and I have no complaints on what it does. The sound of it opening and closing or the light from it’s display have nothing to do with the dual multibit Burr-Brown Pacific Microsonics DACs that produce excellent music.

None, it plays all CDs perfectly and moves forward or backward as directed.

I had always wondered why my CDs seemed to be missing a certain quality of musicality that I knew existed in the recordings from listening to vinyl in high school. I had only had one CD player, a Sony changer with 4 X oversampling bought in 1990. I read the reviews of the Denon DCM-370 and thought for the money I''d see if the sound improved. Well, yes the harmonics returned to the music and the sustain to the guitar leads. Of course now I had to upgrade audio cables, then I wanted to replace my Harman/Kardon AVR 85 which I had been satisfied with before. I purchased a new Denon AVR 3802. Home theater and stereo sounded much better, but now my speakers seemed lacking. I had a pair of ten year old Polk''s RTA 8s. I tried several Polk speakers, but the new speakers did not sound better than the ones I had so I returned them all. Finally, I decided to buy the Klipsch KLF 20 three channel speakers and WOW now I had back all the sound I ever could have imagined was missing. The highs seemed just a little harsh with the Klipsch horn loaded sound, but the sound stage was large, detailed, and full of music that I had not heard for a decade. Thanks, to Charles and others my nine year old son and I went inside the Denon DCM 370 to disconnect the three wire cord running to the headphone jack. You have to push aside the plastic hooks on both sides that have the pins module locked in place, then carefully wriggle it up and out. We then listened and replaced the wires and listened and removed the wires and listened, etc. The highs were less harsh or harshless, any fatigue factor had vanished, and overall there was an improvement of the already excellent sound with the wires removed. HDCD sound is better than standard CDs, but all my CD sound is vastly improved. What started with a single purchase of the Denon DCM 370 turned into a complete system upgrade. But I am happy with my stereo sound and all my CDs sound good and missing bits of music have returned bringing joy to my ears again. I am way over budget by a couple thousand, but I got good deals on all purchases (all online) and I have the sound that makes me happy, finally. :)

very little digital harshness. HDCD may or may not be a strength. Non-HDCD discs sound very good on this player as well. Has not skipped on a single disc since I have owned it.

intermittant no audio from left channel analog output. This may be related to the interconnect being used. Noisy disc tray but performance is not affected.

This is an update to a review from 2000. I''ve owned this player for close to 2 years now, and am starting to have the problem with the left channel audio output that someone else reported (intermittant no audio). I seem to have corrected the problem (for now anyway) by switching interconnect cables, (currently use Monster Interlink 300) so the unit may have a low tolerance to this. Otherwise, the unit has worked almost flawlessly. The disc platter is noisy when opening/closing, but this has not affecting performance. I''ve experienced no problems with skipping or loading of discs. My opinion of the sound has not changed, there is very little digital harshness that you get with many other players costing more.

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Harman Kardon, Sony, Technics

HDCD capability, Sound Quality, Price

somewhat noisy transport

Fantastic sound, Incredibly low price.
Bought mine at Shop4.com for $199 !

HDCD is really awesome! I compared the same songs from John Mellencamp's greatest hits collection on HDCD to those found on his regular CDs --- Anyone can hear the difference! Vocals and instruments sound much more robust, the regular CD songs sound "flat" in comparison. Though regular CDs are supposedly better sounding on an HDCD player than a standard player (see www.HDCD.com for more on the technology and the list of available HDCDs).

Have not had any problems with the transport, though it is a bit noisy between discs -- i.e., random mode is not recommended. Otherwise, I have had mine for 3 months with no glitches whatsoever.

A very very good CD player especially at a low price, and with a fantastic new technological advance

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Onkyo, Sony and Yamaha

I was planning on using this to replace my older NAD. Very good value and sound for the money. I haven't tried the HDCD feature yet, but on regular CDs a little less detail and soundstage than my NAD 502. For now, it's been delegated to the second stereo system.

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NAD 502

Sound is pretty good, price, haven't tried HDCD yet, digital coaxial output

For some reason, it is very sensitive about the digital coaxial output and I had to wiggle the cable until I got it working, but once it started working it kept on working.

I have had this for about a month and I am pretty happy with it. I have noticed it sounds kind of empty when playing CD R's but it's not that bad.

I originally had it hooked up to Sony STR-DB930, but that thing was junk and I returned it for a Denon AVR-2800 (See my reviews for both). This thing is really good and works very well. There is no hum or hiss, which is really good. With the Sony, I couldn't even get sound from the CD player when using the digital coaxial. It took me a little playing with, but after a while I got it to work. The unit works well with most songs. Some songs don't sound that great, but it is still good. I reccommend it for the price.

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Onkyo

HDCD (these discs DO sound better than most conventional CD's), build quality, sound

The remote is on the smaller side for some

In short, I was going to spend more on the Rega Planet or Rotel, but after having the opportunity to take all 3 players home (and suffering a slight monetary loss due to restocking fees) and objectively comparing the sound with MY specific setup, I fell in love with the Denon's sound more than the others'. First, let me say that I absolutely love HDCD. I own about 12 HDCD discs, and they do all sound superb. We're talking reference quality here folks. The 370 does have a 'weighted quality' to the music, rendering it quite analog-like and warm sounding with very good detail and timbre. The imaging with this player is to die for as well, which must have something to do with the design because the Rega paled in comparison. To me, inner detail was very good with conventional CD's, and phenomenal with HDCD. If you are in the market for a 'best bang per buck' CD player, with an excellent D/A converter, look no further than this Denon. Highly, highly recommended for at least a serious listen before you buy anything else in the $500 and under price category!!

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Rega Planet, Cambridge Audio, Rotel

Price. Bass reproduction.

Changer is a little slow and nosiy

I purchased this unit from Shop4.com for 199 (delivered for $211). I had been using my Toshiba SD3109 as my primary cd player but it really did not shine for music so I did some homework and the bought this Denon unit on a price/value basis.

So far the unit has delivered exactly what I want. The biggest problem with the Toshiba is that it tended to make my music cd's sound tinny and harsh. From the minute I plugged in the Denon, the fullness and bass response was dramtically improved. This was especially important for since I use a sub/sat system which tends to favor highs at the expense of mids (Klipsch Quintet).

I'm sure there are better units out there, for example, the platter and mechanism aren't really that great. Similary priced Sony changers have quieter mechanisms. Also, like others have pointed out, not all of the functions are available from the unit, you need to use the remote. This is not really a problem for because I use my remote almost exclusively anyway.

In sum, a great player for the price. The sound is clean and full. The mechanism is not great but certainly tolerable. I would especially recommend this unit to anyone with a sub/sat system who is looking for fuller sound. I really feel it has improved my listening experience.

Nonetheless

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NA