Everyone knows what a battleship is like. Powerful, awesome, bristling with firepower, and demonstrating exemplary performance — right? The same is true for high-end DVD players. Top-of-the-line models are truly formidable pieces of technology, with capabilities and staying power that make them unsinkable by any lesser player. But top-of-the-line DVD players, like battleships, are also expensive. A good player can sell for well over $2000. And, sometimes you just don't need that much armament to rule your particular ocean. Sometimes what you need is, say, a heavy battle cruiser. Or, in the case of a DVD player, a component that is powerful and truly impressive, but not extravagantly priced. For example, consider the Denon DVD-2900.

This sleek, solid, matte-black chassis conceals an exceptional array of technology.

The DVD-2900 caused quite a commotion when it was introduced at the 2003 Consumer Electronics show. And rightly so. This universal player offers progressive-scan video output and handles an entire flotilla of disc and file formats. It plays SACD and DVD-Audio discs (both with full multichannel capabilities), DVD-Video, DVD-R, DVD-RW, CD, CD-R, CD-RW, both Kodak Picture CD and Fujifilm Fujicolor CD, along with MP3 and JPEG files stored on disc. And it is priced at $999.00 — that's over $2500 less than Denon's flagship DVD-9000, which retails for $3500. Rather impressive, no?

Armament
I suppose you could build a naval cruiser that had big guns, but lacked really heavy armor. Similarly, I suppose a DVD player could be compatible with many formats, but lack high-quality design. Fortunately, the Denon DVD-2900 is fully capable on both counts. To play back its armada of disc types, it uses Burr-Brown digital-to-analog converters (DACs) that can handle 192 kHz/24-bit DVD-Audio information, along with a separate chip for playback of the DSD signal on SACDs with high-frequency audio performance up to 100 kHz.

The DVD-2900 is equipped with built-in Dolby Digital® and DTS® decoders. For the cleanest possible signal path when you are playing an audio-only source, a two-mode Pure Direct feature can shut down all video processing and/or digital audio decoding. In addition, the DVD-2900, unlike many earlier high-resolution players, features bass management with a fixed crossover at 80 Hz. Moreover, bass management filtering is performed in the digital domain, prior to conversion to analog; this means that the filtering is more precise.

On the video side, the DVD-2900 uses Denon's PureProgressive circuit. This technology detects a direct film-to-DVD transfer and corrects the pull-down anomalies for proper 2:3 playback. This creates a smooth picture quality that avoids the flickering artifacts occasionally seen in DVD-Video playback. Unlike most DVD-Video players with 10-bit DACs, this machine uses a 12-bit, 108 MHz video digital-to-analog converter.

Audiophile details abound. Denon claims that the special protein paint on the transport mechanism makes it more resistant to vibration. The 18-pound chassis has a low center of gravity that also resists resonance and vibrations. The entire front panel reinforces a feel of refinement — it's elegant, but with everything you'll need. You get all the basic transport controls, plus a switch to activate the Pure Direct modes and another that switches between the layers on an SACD disc — MULTI, STEREO, and CD, which plays the standard 44.1 kHz PCM layer on a hybrid disc. The remote control has everything else you'll need for operating the unit. It is fairly average, but the main navigational controls glow in the dark — a nice touch that is welcome in a darkened home theater.