Denon DCD-A110/PMA-A110 SACD Player/Amplifier Lab Report

Lab Report

Denon's PMA-A110 is no ordinary 80W integrated. Its unique technical 'fingerprint' begins with a very high – too high for modern line sources – overall gain of +45.5dB, but with its novel volume circuit still achieves a phenomenally wide 95dB A-wtd S/N ratio (re. 0dBW). Load tolerance is exceptional too, with its 80W/160W 8/4ohm power rating being met at 2x93W and 2x180W into 8 and 4ohm loads. This 'stiff' PSU means that while there's little additional headroom under dynamic conditions there is the current available (24.9A for 10msec at <1% THD) to support a full 95W, 184W, 346W and 618W into 8, 4, 2 and 1ohm loads, respectively. So tough speaker loads will be driven with comparative ease [see Graph 1, below]. Finally there's its unusual distortion behaviour – stepping up from a very low 0.0009% below 5W/8ohm (the 100W idle draw suggests a Class A bias) to a higher 0.025-0.033% from 10W-80W/8ohm (all at 1kHz). Only under dynamic conditions is distortion uniformly low up to the point of clipping [as illustrated in Graph 1].

Denon's partnering DCD-A110 player offers a 2.34V output (a lower 2.07V with SACD) coupled with a deeply impressive 111dB A-wtd S/N ratio, ±0.5dB resolution over a 120dB range and distortion that's just 0.0001-0.0019% with CD and 0.00009-0.045% with SACD (20Hz-20kHz). Once again, the latest version of Denon's 'Ultra AL32 processing' reveals itself as an adaptive upsampling/filter algorithm – with entirely transient signals it eliminates any pre/post ringing but trades this against an early treble roll-off (–1.6dB/10kHz to –6.7dB/20kHz with CD/48kHz media), while with continuous music signals the filter adopts a steep roll-off (±0.0dB/10kHz to –2.2dB/20kHz). PM

121denon.lab1

Dynamic power output versus distortion into 8ohm (black trace), 4ohm (red), 2ohm (blue) and 1ohm (green) speaker loads. Max. current is 24.9A

121denon.lab2

DCD-A110 THD versus digital signal level over a 120dB dynamic range (1kHz, black; 20kHz, blue)

Continuous power (<1% THD, 8/4ohm) 93W / 180W
Dynamic power (<1% THD, 8/4/2/1ohm) 95W / 184W / 346W / 618W
Amp freq. resp. (20Hz-20kHz/100kHz) +0.0 to –0.18dB/–2.1dB
Freq. resp. (20Hz-20kHz / 100kHz) +0.0 to –2.3dB (CD)/–14dB (SACD)
Digital jitter (CD / SACD) 116psec / 22psec
A-wtd S/N ratio (Player/Amp) 111.1dB (0dBFs) / 94.5dB (0dBW)
Distortion (20Hz-20kHz; Player/Amp) 0.00012-0.002%/0.0004–0.014%
Power consumption (Player/Amp) 32W / 398W (100W idle)
Dimensions (WHD, Player/Amp) 434x138x405/434x182x450mm
Prices £2799/£3199 (SACD/amp)

COMPANY INFO
Sound United/D&M Holdings
Kanagawa, Japan
Supplied by: D&M Audiovisual Ltd, UK
02890 279830
ARTICLE CONTENTS

X