I have a Denon 5900 on order, and it is going straight to Dan Wright (ModWright) for some upgrades, including his Signature Truth Tube mod. From what Dan has told me, both the 2900 and the 5900 are stellar players once they are modded, with the 2900 benefiting the most. Dan also mods Pioneers, but for my purposes, I was limited to either Sony or Denon, and initially I was leaning towards the Sony NS999ES, but Dan said that if you do the same mods, the 2900 ends up being the better player. From there, I decided to go with the 5900 because of the better chassis, the additional video and audio outputs (DVI and iLINK), HDCD compatability, and better video processor. If you are at all interested in mods, you may want to drop Dan a line and see how he thinks a modded Pioneer would compare to the modded Denon.
Tom.