( 10 reviews )
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Posted: Feb 17 2009
The thing cost 300 dollars and quit after less than a year of light use, will only play a minute of music regardless of the cd.
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Posted: Dec 7 2008
I bought a Denon DCM 390 to replace my 15-year old Sony player. We built a house 5 years ago and, while I wasn't paying close attention, we ended up with Denon gear. Except I kept my Sony, which I loved but which eventually died. And so I decided on a 390 as a replacement, which might be more compatible with my Denon amplifier (also a dog). The good news is that the DCM 390 works, after a fashion and at least for now. Practically everything else is the bad news. Features supported by my elderly Sony, things I took for granted, either aren't available in the DCM 390 or can only be executed in the most clunky, time-consuming and counter-intuitive manner. To give two examples, I usually play all the disks on the carousel in the "repeat all" mode. The Denon will do that, but every time you turn on the gear you must remember to punch "repeat" three times, i.e., your preference is not "saved." Otherwise it will play one disk and stop. And the front panel display for repeating all disks doesn't say "Repeat All" or something logical; it says "Repeat Disk" (singular). Also, there is no efficient way to exchange non-playing disks during playback of the current disk. You have to stop playback and do your exchanges individually, then start everything again. Oh, and when you do this you've also turned off Repeat. It must (again) be set to your preference, even though the player has remained "on" throughout. The DCM 390 has a programming function, something I didn't have with the Sony (but did have with my 1985 Teac). The problem is it only works for tracks on the disk currently being played. (This is according to the manual; I haven't tried using it yet.) If you want to program playback of all of disks 1, 3 and 4, but not disks 2 and 5 - too bad. You have to go to the unit and physically remove disks 2 and 5. As for compatibility with the amp, there's little of that. Only a few things (basically play and stop) can be executed with the amplifier remote. For most features you must use the dedicated CD remote or try to locate the necessary (and tiny) buttons on the vision-unfriendly flat black front panel. Then there's the noise. The prominent, distracting Kur-KLUNK as the disks change doesn't inspire confidence. It brings to mind what must have been the sound of one's great-grandfather using a hand-crank to start his Model-T on a cold morning.
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Posted: Nov 20 2008
I've had 3 of these machines over the past couple of years. The first one, bought brand new, sounded great. After a few months, it started acting up - would not read discs at all or would skip, etc. Then I began to clean it regularly using a lens cleaner. That helped, but about a week after the each cleaning the machine would once again begin to function defectively. After about 6 months, the tray (which is all plastic and not very substantial) would simply not open at times for no apparent reason. Turning the player off and back on helped alleviate this situation for a while. But eventually the tray just would not open at all. The machine was history. I phoned Denon at the number on its website, but the phone went unanswered. It was a regular weekday so I was pretty amazed. The phone rang and rang - no voicemail, no machine...? This is supposed to be a high tech audio company, after all. Of course I tried a few more calls over the following couple of weeks, but always got the same result - A phone that rang and rang with no answer whatsoever. Since no one answered the phone, I assumed that if I sent the unit to Denon for repair no one would open the box. Well, because the DCM-390 sounded so good - big, three dimensional soundstage; excellent detail and timbral balance - I bought another. This one was refurbished. It too sounded great, and worked flawlessly for about 8 months or so. Then it began to skip. I cleaned the lens and the machine worked fine - for about a week. Then it began skipping again. I found myself cleaning the lens once a week - and also spraying the back of the tray (into the machine) with compressed air. This really helped, but was too much maintenance as far as I was concerned. One day, after about a year or so, I was listening and suddenly the sound became distorted. Cleaned the lens; it helped somewhat but the distortion remained. Long story short - the machine had given up the ghost. Distorted sound regardless of the CD. Soon the machine ceased to read any CD at all. Denon DCM-390 (number two) was history. Denon DCM-390 (number three) - also refurbished - was defective right out of the box. It emitted a horrendous grinding noise while playing any CD. I took the machine apart in an attempt to fix it, but the grinding noise appeared to be coming from the play motor itself. I lubed the motor and did some other work on it, but it soon became clear that this machine was history as well. Number three went into the trash. When and if any Denon DCM-390 will operate properly is apparently a very dicey proposition, based on my experience. I won't be buying another.
