Old Gold! Denon DCD-3500RG CD Player

The official release photo of Denon DCD-3500RG CD player back in 1989, that's 34 years ago!

As you keen followers have noticed, I have gone in to reverse gear when it comes to hifi since the last couple of years. I usually do not go too far back, but have stuck to the time line of 80's & 90's classics, that's like 30 or 40 years ago, which I felt hifi was at it's last golden age. This Denon DCD-3500RG CD player is probably one of the flagships made by the company over the years. I've had various Denon products over the years, and they are always technically correct in sound, but just never really hit my heart strings. However, this Denon CD player promises to be something different, and I've been waiting for my chance to find out since like 25 years ago. I was always eyeing for a good condition pre-owned unit for sale, but either I was always too late or just got distracted when one became available.

This unit belongs to a friend and as he was getting bored with it, fancied my proposal for a swap with my Teac VRDS-20 CD player, he wanted a small top up but that's fine, since I was bored with the Teac too. For me after a while the Teac with it's VRDS transport should have shined, but never got me emotionally wowed with music. Maybe it wasn't meant to be for me..........   

The CD loading tray come with built in suspension! A feature that is deemed redundant by now.

The Denon DCD-3500RG was launched in 1989, just towards the start of 2nd generation of CD players and it still have many features from the first generation machines deemed un-necessary today, like the suspended CD loading tray, the top Sony KSS-151A CD transport with magnetic rails, track programing calendar and best of all not only wooden cheeks, but the whole top & side panels are real wood finished in dark tone Urushi lacquer, which is very classy. Now a days, if you want your hifi equipment to come with that Urushi lacquer, be prepared to spend at least 6 figures or more! However, for the unit that came to me, that Urushi wood panels were termite infested and I had to sadly remove, throw away, and make new Nyatoh hard wood panels for it! The results, while not glossy like the original Urushi lacquer, came with it's own unique hard wood surface texture charm which is still nice. I can't get anyone to do Urushi lacquer restoration for me locally. Lastly this Denon uses a theoretical 18 bit decoding, courtesy of 4 units Burr Brown PCM58P-K, 2 per channel for balanced circuitry linearity. 

The Denon is another satin gold(not Champaign gold, as the tone is less rich, and a bit pale in comparison), battleship build quality CD player that weights in at 22kgs, came with all round copper coated 2 compartment chassis, which on the left was 2 power supply transformers(1 for audio & 1 for digital, so it says) at the back and the Sony KSS-151A transport in front, with the right compartment holding the dual mono audio PCBs. Very nicely organized. The front fascia is relatively clean with just a few buttons flanking the big CD tray & FL display, all other lesser used buttons are buried inside a flap below.  The back panel has the usual digital output, RCA & XLR audio outs.

The insides of the Denon DCD-3500RG CD player. Nice, right?

 

To reduce fascia design clutter, only the most frequently used buttons are left on the outside, all other buttons are hidden behind a drop down flap below. 

The back panel outputs.

My Denon DCD-3500RG after the wood panel changed, looks quite different doesn't it? Some may say the different wood panels will color the sound differently, but I didn't really heard that.

So far so good, however for a Denon, this CD player is really sounding something else! From the first CD play, I was transfixed by the sound. The bass was strong, bold and tuneful. The mids are slightly recessed, a little laid back but still very engaging. The highs are super refined, very airy but will bite if the music calls for it. The sound stage is big, but very laid back. Overall this CD player certainly has the PRAT factor, which make music very enjoyable. So far all is good, but comparing to my stable of CD players, this Denon does not sound as dark in tonality vs the Sony CDP-X7 ESD, it self a 1988 product. Then comparing to the Accuphase DP-70V which is a more aspirational product and priced(at least double?) to match in 1992, the Accupahse offers slightly more clarity, less digital haze(compared to both Sony & Denon), gives better mid range texture and just maybe slightly better micro dynamics and transient. If there's any comparison I would say both the half priced Sony & Denon offered possibility 85-90% of what the Accuphase can do. However, with most pop & rock recordings it's not easy to tell them apart. Only certain high quality recordings that truly allows the Accuphase to shine, put it on the pedestal, so to speak!

An area I do not like about the Denon is that it doesn't play CD-Rs & scratched disc too well. Only well kept original CDs will do here. But for me, this is no limitation, as I have the other 2 CD players in my stables that will play any disc any condition, especially the Accuphase. I strongly suspect the Sony KSS-151A transport laser in the Denon to be in it's last legs(since 1989!) and it will be a costly affair to source for replacement once dead. However, I feel this Denon is worth saving and to keep it going if the worst should happen. 

Even then, the Denon DCD-3500RG has been in my stables for over a year, and I must say that I've totally enjoyed it's musical company so far, and will be in my stables for a long time to come.

Retro Remote Joy For Denon DRS-810

Denon Remote Control Unit RC-102, which is suitable for all Denon cassette decks with remote sensor function

I love to complete my collection, period! Somehow that cheap compatible China remote works, I still crave for the original Denon item to complete the pairing. As written in last month's Denon DRS-810 cassette deck which I plan to keep, even if the sound quality is not so on par as expect of a 3 head tape deck.

I came across this remote in ebay and subsequently bought it and waited almost a month for shipping to arrive. The remote was pristine and functional as it should be, but most importantly, it completes the pairing with the cassette deck, when on sale during new, the remote was cost option. 

Remote with cassette deck in back ground!

 

Retro Cassette Joy, Denon DRS-810

The Denon DRS-810 cassette deck is unique as it uses a CD tray like drawer to load, rather than a standard cassette well

In the late 80's till sometime in the mid 90's cassette decks with a CD tray design for cassette loading was all the rage. I even had one from Sony installed in my car! So when I saw pictures of this Denon DRS-810 on the www, I was all smitten! Better yet, this Denon DRS-810 is a top spec deck too!

It comes with 3 heads, closed loop dual capstan 3 motor transport & non-slip reel drive. As with most  CD drawer design decks, the casing is premium slim line, but I didn't quite like the smallish fluorescent display for time elapse, status & db meter, especially that cyan/red tone graphics color. What I really like though is the CD drawer like tray in which you have to press the Open/Close button on the right side of the tray to load a cassette! My, my......... after 30 years or so in service, the cassette tray still glides in & out smoothly & reliably. My unit came finished in typical Japanese satin black face plate, but the DRS-810 does have a version in Champaign gold color scheme that also comes with wood side cheeks as option. Now that would really desirable, and that's called the Denon DRS-810 G as pictured below.

The back panel

The back panel of the Denon DRS-810 is pretty standard cassette deck, with one pair of RCA in & out for recording & playback on the left, followed by power cord on the right. Build quality is decent & sturdy enough, but not battleship quality like as my Akai GX-95 MKII. The Denon weights in at 6.6kgs, not too shabby for a cassette deck, after all this unit lasted at least 30 years or so, and still very much alive & kicking. Like most hi-end cassette decks of the time, it comes with a remote too, but that was missing with my unit, but our resourceful Mr Oh did managed to get the remote codes and cloned an after market remote for my use.

With the drawer opened for cassette loading

I was happy man when I brought this unit home, hook it up to my system and just let there be sound! The sound took a while to bloom, as I think the previous owner seldom used it as he had too many decks to play with. However once the sound start to come together, I got a very stable, super low wow & flutter quality playback, the Denon has a chocolaty dark tonality, however that darkness doesn't mean rich or sugary sweetness either, and if compared to most entry level hi-end deck like my Teac V-670, would not disappoint but the Teac does sound way more open, less closed in. The Denon claws back points for having a more stable transport though. However, as I was coming in from the Akai GX-95 MKII, and it immediately shown the Denon to have limited dynamic range. The Denon can kick & rock hard, mind you, but the whole presentation just felt somewhat compressed by comparison. Otherwise, the Denon DRS-810 sounds pretty decent and enjoyable even. 

Like all tape decks, the sound quality depended a lot on the cassette type & recording quality. With the Denon, the playback quality of normal type I tapes was decent, and naturally chrome type II tapes sounds way better, but the sound quality gap between chrome type II vs metal type IV tapes is somewhat limited. However, insert a well recorded chrome type II tape made from my Teac V-670 and the Denon does sound very nice indeed, with smooth highs, a prominent mid range and kick ass bass to boot.

The Denon DRS-810 G version shown here, minus the wood cheeks, seen here with the bottom flap opened to reveal the Dolby NR selection buttons and bias fine tuning knobs with headphone jack & volume control

The insides of the Denon DRS-810, like the CD transport, once the cassette is loaded inside, there is a ceramic clamp that locks & stabilizes the cassette during playback. The most un-appealing aspect of this design is when one needs to clean the tape heads & pinch rollers, one has to remove the top cover to do so, unless one is using a cassette tape head cleaner. The PCB used is typical 80's - 90's thru hole type which for me is much preferred, especially if repairs are needed

My verdict of this deck, is the top quality transport, somewhat let down by the audio output circuit which could be better implemented coming from a company of Denon's stature, which is a bit disappointing. I wonder if there's anything I could do to make it sound better on the audio board side?Only a long hard look will tell if some thing is possible at this point. However, this is what it is, an entry level hi-end deck with 3 heads for superior recording function and decent playback quality. And this Denon does it all with some unique style and flair typical of it's era. Worthy keeper for nostalgic reasons.  

The Results, My Home Theater

Continuing from my last posting about my HT room project. I have allocated a room measuring 17ft x 13ft x 11ft(W x L x H). My projection screen mounted on the 17ft wall which leaves me the 13ft total projection length. The final outcome is that 11ft projection length(measured from tip of lens) was used as projection length for the Optoma UHD 50 projector to project 120 inch screen size(measured diagionaly as in TVs)  

The 120 inch XY screen dominates the 17ft wide wall. Also noted is a pair of SVS PB-2000 sub woofers, flanked by a pair of Bose 901 MK VI series main speakers partnered with a single Bose 201 MK III as center channel.

Form the next picture below, you can see that my sofa is backed up against the back wall still measuring 17ft wide, but with space taken up entry door on the left, and equipment rack & disc library on the right. Overall, this is a SIM 4K picture quality & Dolby Atmos 5.2.4 sound specification based system. And if you look carefully, you won't see much cabling, as most are either imbedded in wall or in ceiling. All the cabling was laid when I planned my HT room project during my home renovation in 2018.

 

You can also see that the Optoma UHD 50 projector is mounted right above the sweet spot of the sofa! Flanking the projector is a pair of Bose 101 surround speakers. If you look carefully on the right, next to my equipment rack, is the Bose Acoustimas 5 passive sub woofer, which is set to high pass at 80Hz as part of the rear surround system. 

My equipment rack from top: Denon AVR X-4400 H receiver for Dolby Atmos & DTS-X processiong & powering center channel & 2 pairs Dolby Atmos ceiling speakers which are Bose Model 25, Oppo UDP-203 4K disc player with the Oppo BDP-95 Full HD player with Cinivia free. Further below is the Cambridge Audio A120 4 channel power amp, powering front main speakers & surround sound duties. Further below is the Weiduke AC 8.8 power conditioner which powers the whole stack of equipment as seen and my dual HDD toaster for my 4K movie collections. 

On the right side corner of the back wall, is a compartmentalized area, mainly for library of disc collection. I also installed a dedicated MCB box in my HT room. If the book shelves looked familiar, is because they are from Ikea!

I also did some acoustic diffuser works on the ceiling to break up sound waves, coupled to heavy drape curtains on both sides of the side wall upon the first reflection points of the Bose 901 MK VI main speakers. The ceiling acoustic diffuser also works as the mood light & 2 pairs Dolby Atmos ceiling speaker mounts, if you look carefully.  

Overall for the money I spent, at about MYR25,000 on all equipment count, I feel satisfied with the intangible return on entertainment values, especially these days of MCO where the cinemas are closed. The 120 inch screen give big picture cinema feel when just sitting about 13ft away. When viewing Full HD movies, the picture is bright, vivid tonal pallet and very punchy, if some what veering slightly bluish(like most Sony or Samsung TVs factory calibration). Upon having sifu Michael Wong(contacted via FB) coming over to help calibrate my projector, the picture quality improved in terms of field of depth layering of majestic scenes from movies. Since the Optoma UHD 50 is a SIM 4K(i.e. non native or up sampling to 4K), the picture quality in 4K post calibration took a turn for darker and being a budget projector, the blackness(or greyish black) weakness is laid bare and exposed for all to see too clearly. Movies like Batman's The Dark Night should be avoided in 4K mode, due to the projector limitations. Bottom line is if you're expecting JVC level of 4K reproduction here, you'll be sorely disappointed. However if you are like me, where my majority of movies are on Full HD, with only the occasional 4K viewing diet, then this projector will get the job done very well.

The sound is an area I am more than happy with. I run the Denon Audyssey Auto  Calibration with the supplied OEM mike and already gor very decent results. I then further fine tune the channel levels, the high pass frequencies for speaker and low pass for LFE, and timing compensation with EQ off. It was just some tuning from disc to disc over time and until a point, I never need to fine tune the Dolby Atmos settings again, until I changed something that is.

The sound is with effective in surround panning, & the Atmos ceiling speakers are especially effective when watching raining or thunderstorm or aircraft scenes, especially is movies like Top Gun & Mid Way, just to recall the 2 movies that impressed me. The dual SVS sub configuration gives thundering bass and full on explosion impacts, to the point that is room and plaster ceiling shaking! I love using Bose speakers all round for HT because they are really good value at used prices and they can really go loud without popping their drivers! They are also very warm sounding for music concerts, and especially enjoyable when playing those Vienna Philharmonic New Years Concerts! 

I have made some improvements along the way since system installation over a year ago, and I'll get to those later. What do you think? Kindly feedback on comments section with thanks if any opinion or questions............

My AV Revival, When It All Comes Together.

The 64 inch Samsung PN64D7000 Smart TV dominates the AV set up, based in my family lounge measuring about 18 x 25 x 12ft(W x L x H). My sitting distance from the display is about 20ft away, but the nearest seat in the house is probably more further than 10ft from the screen, but the picture quality is still ok, without the screen pixels being visible just yet. 

In my last post, I've introduced the new building blocks chosen for integration with the existing speakers for my renewed AV system. You may have spotted that they are practically all last year's model! I think if if one is looking for value performance and not necessary must have the latest specs, then last year's models at clearance prices can make great buys, for those on a limited budget like me.

For me at least, all the best equipment is pointless, as I must still find a way to integrate them in to my family lounge. The trick is in the AV rack, which I've chosen to by pass all those performance enhancing specialty rack for this lovely looking, solid hard wood AV rack, which softens the overall hard edge look of the display and equipment, to fit in to my domestic lounge decor, mostly made from similarly warm tone lacquered hard wood too. It took me a while to do furniture shopping while all the equipment arrived and awaiting to be set up.

Astro cable TV decoder made by Philips and Pioneer BDP-140 represents the source of my home entertainment.

The Denon AVR1612 receiver is a reasonably powerful sounding workhorse, and actually sound like it's got more to give than it's modest power specs would indicate, provided you sort out the power cord issue. It runs cool too, which its why I could get away with such a tight fitting ventilation space. After more than 2 hours of high power rumbling my lounge, the Denon only felt slightly warm to touch.

With the arrival of the AV rack a week or so later allowed me to proceed with setting the system. A good buddy, who is an authoritative figure in the industry came to lend his pair of hands and expertise in helping me do the initial set up. The whole process of connecting all the cables and making doubly sure that everything has it's place took nearly 3 hours of hard work, including using the Audyssey as starting point 5.1 chanel calibrating but when the first disc was ready to play, it was testing time.

We used a variety of Blu-ray movies to reference the sound calibration, including Avatar, Transformers 3, and Lord Of The Rings Trilogy. Some of my older reference DVDs, like Black Hawk Down and Terminator 2 were also used to familiarised my self to the new system. The remaining fine tuning was for the 5.1 chanel surround set up was completed over a course of two weeks, with more movies and pop corn sessions. It doesn't really feel like work actually! 

The ol' skool Bose 301 Series II dates back to 1988, when I bought my first hifi set, the fact that it still serves my home entertainment today speaks volumes of it's quality. The Velodyne VX-10 is another blast from the past, since 2003. It's a 10 inch sub woofer with a self powered built in plate amp, wired with Monster sub woofer cable from the Denon AVR 1612. The Velodyne produces enough low rumble during movies, courtesy of the corner enforcement placement.

The Bose VCS 10 center chanel speaker is probably the weakest link in my AV set up for now. Plans are in place to do something about it. Stay tune to find out.

The Bose VCS 30 installed with wall mount brackets. I place them about 1 feet higher than ear level when seated, for most effective surround panning results. I had my family lounge wired in wall with tin plated Belden speaker cables, to maintain the wire free look, prior I moved in during 2003.  

The final result I got was brilliant pictures and big sound quality to match. The system went pretty loud too, and seemingly able to rumble the family lounge when the movies call for it. The surround panning effect works seamlessly to immerse the movie experience that bit more satisfactory. I get a kick when kids and some un suspecting adults turn their heads towards the back as the surround effect pans out, only to realised I've got a pair of really small Bose VCS-30 speakers around the back, while watching movies. The element of surprise is relevant for one to get totally absorb in to the movie one is watching.  Dialogues are highly intelligible and clear if a little weedy sounding, compared to the big, full bodied sounds of the front and surround effects. For me, this is an area that needs to be further improved, at least to get as tonally seamless with the big Bose 301 Series II as possible. I've figured out the improvement plans, which will need a bit of time to materialised. Also on my mind is that 10AWG power cord for the Denon AVR 1612 receiver, which can still be heard to be performing on the edge when loud explosions and dynamic sound track passages. The symptoms manifest it self as the sound just one the verge of breaking up on the near max volume.

Remote control heaven! From left: Astro, Samsung, Denon and Pioneer.

A scene from Lord Of The Rings Trilogy. Mood lights are dimmed for best viewing pleasure.

It's been a fun and satisfying experience setting this AV system, which is my fourth project(my first AV project was under taken in the early 1990's. It was a full fledge projector based, 5 chanel(there was no.1 yet at the time!) Dolby AC-3 system, comissioned by my dad in his home) over the years by the way. More AV adventures to come as I set about to unleash the full potential of my AV system.

My AV Revival, The Building Blocks.

Let's face it, no matter how superb sounding our hifi can make music sound, I think sometimes we need some movies too. As you may have guess from the equipment list on my previous 5.1 AV set up, the system was sound performance biased. I admit that at the time, the sound sometimes gets bigger than the picture it self. However, given the prohibitive cost of good big screens at the time, the choice was obvious.

I decided to set up a more balanced 5.1 AV system this time, paying equal attention to sound and vision. The task is less daunting this time round, due to the falling prices of big screens, and the relative affordability of Blu-ray players now days, couple to the more mature HDMI hook up format, reducing cable needs dramatically.

As my AV ambitions are less demanding compared to my stereo aspirations, I decided to go the budget route, yet the AV system must not dominate the family lounge, but rather serves to gather the whole family together for weekend pop corn and movie sessions. The kids just love it!

The system component selection reflects my thinking, and must work with my existing Bose 5.1 speaker set up already installed previously, along with the Velodyne VX-10 sub woofer. The existing Bose 5.1 speakers comprises of the 301 Series II for front chanel pair, and VCS-30 surround and center chanel set. It's imperative that the AV receiver have enough power to rumble the Bose speakers!

Pioneer BDP-140 Blu-ray player

This Pioneer BDP-140 Blu-ray player will soon be replaced by the newer BDP-150 model. I am not sure at this point the specifications of the newer model, but it surely looks very similar to the BDP-140. This is the entry point for Pioneer Blu-ray players, but the picture and sound quality is anything but budget. The build is light weight, but like everything else from the Pioneer stables, it well screwed together and come with a remote of overly large button count, majority of which I'll probably never use. For playing DVDs, the BDP-140 has impressive picture up scaling quality, much to the surprise for many of my buddies who came to view my new AV set up. There are now quite a few Blu-ray players from other manufacturers priced below the sub RM$500/unit market, but I believe if you're serious about movies as much as I am, then the Pioneer BDP-140 is quite likely to be the minimum entry level, even if it's just paying a bit more for the extra quality. This player is not fussy about disc quality, and has so far only rejected two disc of the hundreds that I've fed it.

Denon AVR 1612 AV Receiver

The Denon AVR 1612 AV receiver is something of a dark horse, as I initially wanted the older AVR 1611 instead, because the older model had more power on specs. The newer AVR 1612, is a 5.1 chanel only receiver, but comes with Airplay function for Apple iPod users, which I've not used. The AVR 1612 also has Audyssey Multi EQ to make initial setting up a doodle, followed by further fine tuning for the 5.1 surround chanels. Again, the Denon is well built, if somewhat light weight, thanks to it's five chanel class D power modules coupled to linear power supplies, which means it runs supremely cool, even with the most demanding of movie sound tracks. What surprised me was the highly detailed, yet musical nature of the amplifier section when I played some 5.1 chanel decoded SACDs, fed by the Pioneer BDP-140 on HDMI 1.4 connection! The remote is again of the buttons overload variety, but comes with night reflective white buttons(which glows light green when in the dark) for those commonly used. I had one issue when setting up the Denon, is when I substituted the rather short(but rather thick) original power cord supplied, with one that was longer which I had previously used to power my PC, and the receiver struggled to cope with loud explosion scenes during movies. The sound was breaking up and pictures were jittery too. I believe the power current draw is high and a big bad(10AWG at least!) power cord would be needed to get maximum performance out of the AVR 1612. Oh... by the way, the KLIAV 2012 show just saw the launch of the Denon AVR 1613, which looks surprisingly similar too.

Samsung PN64D7000 Smart TV

I never really taught my budget would stretch this far, but a buddy on the up grade path made ownership of this Samsung PN64D7000 Smart TV possible. It's a pre-owned item, but well taken cared for and most importantly, it fit's my budget. It's a 64 inch plasma TV framed by rectangular glass at the seams design gives it a futuristic look. I must say this Smart TV does so many things, to the point that I sometimes feel it's smarter than me! Like for instance, Astro has an annoying habit of pumping up the volume during advertisements, that I always have to tone down the volume by remote when using my old TV. The Samsung Smart TV does exactly the same, but only automatically. The volume restores to it's original setting when the actual program continues after the commercials. Still on Astro programs, which I am using the oldest 1st generation Philips decoder(non HD subscription), yet the built in picture up sampling feature of the smart TV brings picture and sound quality bang up to the top. Again those whom have viewed my Astro program chanels were amazed that I am not subscribing to the HD chanels, based on what they've seen. The titanium satin finished remote is just as smart, as it's soft touch buttons lights up when one presses any button and the layout is rather intuitive. The smart TV also does 3D pictures with very vivid results, provided the optional active 3D glasses are used. I only have one 3D featured Blu-ray disc at my disposal so couldn't test more of the effects. My buddy has a habit of having all his displays, regardless if they are projector or screen based calibrated to ISF standards, which renders balanced tonal colours and very realistic flesh tones. Well calibrated ISF standard screens have an uncanny ability to render picture depth layerings and details with exceptional ease. Another thing to note is that one can sit relatively close(about 3 feet) to the screen, and still don't noticed the pixelated effects. The screen also has great blacks(in my opinion, second only to the once mighty Pionner Kuro screens) This makes movie marathon sessions possible, because the eyes do not suffer from fatique or stress. While at it, I noticed the screen runs only moderately warm, even after hours of use, which is a far cry compared to earlier generations of plasma screens. This Samsung Smart TV is the smartest move as far as high quality screen choice is concerned.

I proceeded to assemble the whole system and integrate the new components with the old Bose speakers. And the results?

Stay tuned to find out!