WHY IT TTAKES A 20-BIT CD PLAYER TO APPROACH TRUE 16-BIT LINEARITY.
If human ingenuity could build the perfect 16-bit digital-to analog converter, there would be no need for Denon's new 20-bit approach to building CD Players.
Unfortunately, 16-bit players have always been susceptible to distortion--linearities and quantization errors. This means they can't maintain accurate spacing between all of the 65,536 amplitude levels available from the 16 bit samples of the Compact Disc.
Enter Denon's "Delta" system. It combines the world's first 20-bit 8x resampling digital filter with the first true 20-bit linear converters to process each 16-bit sample to four additional digits of accuracy. (That's something like using 3.141593 as the value of "pi" when everyone else uses 3.14.)
This oscilloscope trace confirms the even spacing of
amplitude levels in Denon's 20-bit system.
This is no mere computational trick: Denon 20-bit CD Players literally extract more music from the Compact Disc. They exhibit better dynamic range, lower noise, and lower distortion during quiet passages. In the process, Denon 20-bit machines reveal more of the low-level detail that defines musical timbre. On well-recorded CDs, l you'll hear more of what makes a french horn sound like a french horn.
DCD-3520 Compact Disc Player
There's more. Since the days of Denon's early digital recorders, we've understood that not all digital bits are created equal. The digital word's Most Significant Bit (MSB) contributes 32,768 times the amplitude of the Least Significant Bit (LSB). That's why every Denon Compact Disc Player since 1983 has included the Super Linear Converter--a circuit we use to hand-adjust the MSB of every Player for superior accuracy. Recognizing the wisdom of Denon's approach, independent academic papers have now identified D/A conversion error in the MSB as the primary culprit behind audible distortion in Compact Disc Players.
With Super Linear Converters, the 20-bit "Delta" circuit, and Denon refinements in power supply, laser transport and chassis design, the new Denon DCD-3520 and DCD-1520 elevate digital playback to a new level of musicality. In the process, they achieve the closest approach yet to true 16-bit linearity.
Denon America, Inc., 222 New Road, Parsippany, NJ 07054, USA.
DESIGN - INTEGRITY
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(Source: Audio magazine, Jan. 1989)
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