Oppo 981 vs Denon 2910

[UFObuster]

It's down to these two....
The Oppo has the tide of opinion but contrarion that I am, I'm not convinced that it plays back music as well as the Denon. I've only got 1080i...but I'm using Rotel/Klipsch products and want the best bang-for-buck music system along with DVD upscaling....a classic "cake and eat it, too" scenario.

So, given that the 2910 is found for only about $100 more these days...why would I get the OPPO? Opinions?
Thanks!

 

[mr-ben]

Suggestion: Buy both. Both Oppo and any Denon authorized dealer will have a 30-day full return policy. Play with both, and return the lesser of the two. I don't know if the price for the Denon you're looking at is from an authorized dealer though, which makes it harder.

 

[billy p]

Have you considered the toshiba hd players. Excellent for upconversion and audio playback and likely better, then the aforementioned players and could be had for less then $300.00.

 

[Mort Corey]

For playing back redbook CD titles there won't be any difference if you're using coaxal or optical audio out from the player as your receiver DACs would be the ones in play. As far as SACD or DVD-A playback, I replaced a Denon 2900 with an Oppo 970 and noticed very little difference....the Denon seemed a little better though. (That was using the player DACs and the five channel analog cables to the receiver). I still have both players but have left the Oppo hooked into the system as I don't play multi channel music enough that the small loss of quality matters that much to me...YMMV.

Mort

 

[Ax-man]

I've had my Denon 2910 for about a year and a half or so and one little quirk that I've noticed is that it sometimes seems to not want to respond to commands sent from the remote whenever it is first turned on, afterwards it is perfectly fine. Operationally it does the job quite well and overall I'm very happy with it.

Man it's hard to beat the price on the Oppo though!

 

[Bassman2]

I just got back in to audio after about 25 years out, so I've been catching up the last few months. But I've been listening to people say that if your not using the players DAC then they all sound the same. Well I just recently switched from a 2000 Philips 941 to a 07 Denon 1930, and using the same recievers dac's there was a big difference.

I don't know if the older technology had anything to do with it, but I do know that the Phillips had very little use in it's 7 years as it was in storage most of the time. The difference between the two was like a CD on a cheap system compared to an LP on a good system. With the latter being the denon.

The denon has a smoother high end without that harsh phaser effect, more depth to the soundstage, much better imaging, and fuller, deeper bass. That whole exaggerated high end and compressed bass lacking sound was sort of shifted down a little. Less highs, more bass and better everything else. And again, both used their coaxial output.