I actually have a Denon dcm 560, but wanted to add to the reviews on this product (which I'm assuming is basically the same as the 460 since they share an owner's manual). Mine just started skipping a bit after 12 happy years of use. I took some advice from the internet, and cleaned off the lens eye and keeping my fingers crossed, it's sounding great now! Love this CD player--it was my first big purchase (along with receiver and speakers) after a divorce, and have to say--the best one I made!

I bought new and paid retail less about 15% for this unit and chose it becasue it was a model or two above by dads, and it seemed much better built than the Yamahas and Marantz available for similar money. Many years later it still operates without any dramas, and I use it pretty much every day, for hours, and sometimes it gets left on for months, and sometimes I'll accidently leave it on pause or repeat for days, and I sometimes leave it playing overnight. I have dropped mine from about 2 foot off the ground on its side onto a carpet floor in the course of moving 10 times over the years, the DCD-460 didn't care at all. The "favourite track" memory is such a great feature and it remembers cd's I programmed for when I just bought the thing. Sound quality is well balanced for a 5 changer, plenty of detail but smooth enough to listen to all day, like a 5 changer should be. Put proper headphones on (AKG 701's) and there is all the detail you'll ever need. Without exaggeration mine had probably done 30,000 hours of playing cd's with about 90,000 hours of being turned on, has never had a service, and is still going pefectly.

Issues: Never physically jammed on me but it has actually frozen up, as in a computer crash style, 2 or 3 times over the years, and sometimes, maybe 15 times over the years, it doesn't quite read a newly loaded cd and gets a bit confused. Yes it is clunky, and mine has transport noise at lower speeds when reading from the outer edges of long cd's. Big deal. The fast forward button on the remote is not functional, but I did abuse it. The power cable is a little bit flimsey. Has a plastic chassis, so not designed to place heavy components on top. Headphone volume control is not very well built. Very minor issues overall.

Anyone complaining about poor sound quality or lack of detail should upgrade their speakers or dampen their listening environment before pointing the finger at their Denon DCD-460. Whiles there are better quality players out there this is well and truely a proper HiFi cd player suitable for extended listening with exceptional reliability.

Reading some of the poor reviews inspired me to join Audioreview. I quite happily admit to not being an Audiophile but someone who enjoys listening to good music, so the gear I select is hopefully a happy median and I am pleased to say the DCM 460 has not disappointed. I have owned this from new for close to 15 yeas and it has never missed a beat, reliability personified, must be lucky I guess going by some of the reviews. When I first purchased I auditioned this unit against players from Arcam and Yamaha and it left them for dead in terms of natural sound and smoothness of delivery. If some reviewers think Denon is Bright, try listening to Yamaha, then you'll truely hear bright. I have a personal perference for Vocals and enjoy some of the earlier Terence Trent-Darby like I'll Be Alright from Neither Fish nor Flesh, Annie Lennox's Whiter Shade of Pale and Something So Right. Other favs like any form of Coldplay or Malcom Mclaren's Paris are delivered with ease along with The Stranglers Aural Sculpture, and all Grace Jones. Typical easy listening stuff such as Noran Jones is a breeze. The DCM 460 delivers all of this with such a natural and pure manner you'd swear they were performing in your lounge which is what I'm after and for the money I can't fault this player. I only gave it a 4 for Overall Rating as I am realistic and am sure the high end audiophile stuff is better.
However, to get the desired listening experience I did make sure I used Speakers that also matched by listening style and have a preference for the Danes with a set of 12 year old Jamo 707's and a new set of Dynaudio Audience 82's. Mated with these speakers I simply can't fault the sound. Possibly some of the rough reviews such as 'Bright' & 'Grudgy' may just be a mismatch of gear as, whilst not an Audiophile, I do realise everything needs to work together and every listener has a personal preference, for me it all WORKS.

Only real fault as mentioned by others is the tray and change mechanism is a bit clunky. But who cares, it's only between CD's and I don't really use the shuffle options.

Would I recommend the DCM 460, 100%.

I purchased this on clearnace some years ago and have been extremely satisfiedwith all aspects of it's operation ever since. Most notably, its reliable and skip free performance and excellent sound quality. My opinion was enhanced when my 8 year son recently smashed into the unit when I had the carrousel out. It wouldn't close and I thought the unit was a goner and then I decded to open it up andtry and force the tray back into its track. It worked and now, believe it or not, the unit continues to work flawlessly except for a slightly differet sound from the corrousel mechanism- which i'll gladly put up with. I have had many other CD changers over the unit and sooner or later they all develop optical reading problems. Not this one and I'll stick with it and give it top marks for its solid construction and performance. A winner!

I picked up a Denon DCM-460 5CD Changer at a second-hand store a week ago. I paid $9.95 for it. I had no idea if it even worked. But I own 2 Denon receiver/amps, and knowing what great quality they are, how could I miss for 10 bucks? I cleaned the CD Laser with a Maxell cleaning disc, put on DejaVu (CSN+Y), plugged in my SennHeimer headphones, and "Viola !!" The 10-buck Denon makes my $260 Onkyo sound like crud. I'm so thankful that the reviews say that the Denon DCM-460 is 'junk'. Otherwise, the thrift shop might have charged me $50 bucks (which YOU should pay gladly if you see one around).

I purchased this Denon DCM 460 based on:
1) reveiws at this site
2) horrible reliability in the past with sony cd carousels/changers
3) headpone jack with level knob (volume)
4) Use of Burr-Brown DAC,s

Mine & my freinds past experiences with sony cd changers has been horrible.
Reliability just isnt there. These sonys are just plastic timebombs.
They all have common changer freeze-ups and failures.

Started having problems with my Denon DCM 460.
The unit would not load cd,s.
It tried to with resounding clunks.
It would go from cd 1 through cd 5 without loading a single cd.
Frustrated with this problem, I opened up the unit for a visual inspection
What I found, made me puke.
A Large Scale Integrated Chip with the name SONY on it.
Eventually found the Burr Brown DAC,s

I feel I overpaid for the DCM 460 unit.
Just another SONY inspired piece of crap.
I eventually realized that it exhibited the same modes of failure that the SONY'S have for years.

Save your money, irregardless of the price. The DCM 460 doesnt cut the mustard.
Its not worth the aggravation, or the price.

On another SONY note, we have 3 of their PC Computer based DVDRW,s (Internal models )which work fine.
How can this be?
The answer is SONY didnt build these units.
They are built by BenQ, Model DW1640,s with 2mb buffers,
and a DW 1670 with 2 mb buffer.
Their BIOS spells it out, as does their unique cooling ducts in the external sheetmetal.
If you plan to buy a BenQ drive, Ensure it has 2 MB Buffer, Not the one with 96KB buffer.
Make sure you research different brands.

None, unless you can hear well

Made personally for Rodney Dangerfield's golf bag

I want to personally thank all the reviewers who have made it possible for me to buy several of these units on eBay for less than $50. I agree this CD player is TERRIBLE. Unluss you like hearing every nuance of sound with detailed, unrelenting refinement, imaging, and clarity. Now I have to admit I haven't ever listened to a Rotel, or a Theta, the Beta or the Omega -- and indeed if these sound better, well damn! But seriously, you can hear the pick on the strings, the frogs in the singer's throats, you can darn near see the crystal in the sounds of bells. the wood in the guitar. This thing is awsome. Yes, the carousel is a little clunky, but here's the deal: never use the variable output feature, wear the unit in for severl weeks, plug a set of fine headphones into the front -- you will be AMAZED. You will find out how bad the rest of your system is, and how bad all the rest of the sub-$1000 CD players are, and you will never look back. Maybe forward to the Rotels, Beta, Thetas, and Omegas of the world, but never back. Unless I'm wrong in which case, there might a few idiots out there like me who will cough up 20-30 bucks for this mid-level, mass-marketed, clunky, chunky, bright, thin, hazy, grungy piece of junk.

Customer Service

eBay, Rob, and my friends at UPS, FedEx, USPS have been great

Similar Products Used:

Never heard any -- couldn't afford them

Alpha DAC, Very reliable

This CD player has never given me any trouble at all and always sounds great. Besides a couple quirks (disc numbers only show when tray is rotated, for example) it is an excellent player. I also have a Denon cassette deck and the synchro function is wonderful.

The DAC's, Reliability, solid transport and random play.

nothing at this price

I bought the Denon DCM-460, a few years ago to replace a Denon DCM-420, which played flawlessly for five years with rich detailed sound. However, the DCM-420 noisy carousel transport was annoying and slow while rotating to the next CD in a single direction. That’s right, I load up the CD player hit random and repeat to have continuous music playing for hours. The ole DCM-420 was passed on to my oldest daughter, who continues to use and loves it. However, she connected the DCM-420 digital out to her Sherwood Newcastle 945. The DAC in the Newcastle 945 brought new life to the CD player. Without question, the Newcastle DAC’s were superior to the DAC’s in the DCM-420. Anyway, back to the purchased Denon DCM-460 a few years ago. When I first installed it, I set it to random and repeat and let it play for a few weeks without the amplifier. I learned that trick with the old DCM-420. The carousel transport noise was greatly reduced and the bi-directional rotation was more than twice as fast as the DCM-420. After the break in period, I played a few mixed CD’s and discovered midrange instruments never heard before with the DCM-420. It was incredible, I listened for hours and found the music more detailed, new background instruments, vocal artist breathing or hear other details like the vocal artist, while not singing lips meeting and mouth movement. Additionally, the music was much warmer, with improved imaging at the higher frequencies. All seems good and wonderful. A year later, after some pressure, I gave away the Denon DCM-460 CD player to my youngest daughter and I went out and bough another DCM-460. Rather than breaking the player in for a few weeks, I listened to it first. My first reaction was that the unit was defective and the Alpha DAC’s produced annoying digital sounding music. I powered down the amplifier and let the CD player run for a couple of week. After the bread in period, as before, I selected a few of my favorite CD’s and played them. I found that this Denon DCM-460 produced music both at the high and mid-range the same as the previous CD player. However, now there was base and lots of it. Base I never heard before and the base present and very detailed. Where did all this base come from? Nothing in the configuration changed, same amp, wires and speakers. My guess is that the Denon CD players may have revisions implemented over time as they are manufactured. What else could it be? Today, my Denon DCM-460 is over a year old, the carousel transport is very quite and you have to take notice and listen for it to hear the movement. The player has worked perfectly without any issues, not one skip and the music is just wonderful. I just sit there in amazement. When I close my eyes, I could swear that I am there live and in color with the artist and the band. I cannot believe that it could be any better. Recently, my daughter and I played the ELVIS 30 number one hits released around last Christmas. We played the album on both CD players. We both agreed that my DCM-460 player had more mid-base and base than her CD player produced. I know, your thinking different audio configurations, well yea, but just a bit. We both have the Denon DCM-460 CD player, with monster THX interconnects and speaker cables bi-wired to Infinity Delta 60. My amp is a Denon PMA 980R and hers is a Denon AVR 2802. By the way, we tested the DAC’s in the Denon AVR-2802 to Denon’s Alpha DAC’s and found that the DAC’s in the Denon AVR 2802 does not compare or come close to the Alpha DAC’s in the CD player. On the other hand the DAC’s in the Newcastle 945 were very good, a bit warmer than the Denon and as smooth, but some of the audio detail found with the Alpha processors are lacking. Final note, all three Denon CD players continue to work perfectly fine without any issues. Several CD-R’s poorly recorded and scratched CD that skip or stop playing, or just put the in car CD player into an audio frenzy, work perfectly with the Denon DCM-460.

Similar Products Used:

DENON DCM-420, Toshiba SD-3109

Well, I don't have the 460 model, but the 440 (if someone can explain me the differences, because I haven't found any information about the 440 model). After 6 years of use, I'm very happy with this CD changer. The sound is very equilibrated, almost perfect to me (I don't like the harsh sound of others players). I'm not an audiophile, but I think that this Denon is a very good entry point.