I'm not so sure about the Denon's lack of Redbook performance. My buddy and I had a shootout 3 weeks ago between my Denon 2910 and his Marantz 8260 using Redbook and SACD and the Denon matched the Marantz step for step and surpassed it in some ways.
In no area was the Marantz superior, and that's according to *him*, a known-to-be-fussy true audiophile. The icing on the cake? I paid $500 for my Denon from Agon (with a 4 year warranty!). They are currently available for $325+ right here, right now. And, the 3910 is also available here for $650+ and is supposed to have superior audio capabilities.
BTW, the video performance of the Denons is *superb*, DVDs look like HDTV via the 1080i upscaling...
-RW-
In no area was the Marantz superior, and that's according to *him*, a known-to-be-fussy true audiophile. The icing on the cake? I paid $500 for my Denon from Agon (with a 4 year warranty!). They are currently available for $325+ right here, right now. And, the 3910 is also available here for $650+ and is supposed to have superior audio capabilities.
BTW, the video performance of the Denons is *superb*, DVDs look like HDTV via the 1080i upscaling...
-RW-