Denon DP-400 and DP-450USB Turntables-First Look

Introduction

Vinyl never died, it just took a short nap. Enthusiasts like myself have continued to keep it on life support until the new generations re-discovered all of its magic. That time is now here and vinyl sales continue to grow as each generation discovers the vinyl sound, and ability to interact with this, wonderful tactile format.

Trying to recommend a turntable, arm and/or cartridge is a bit like trying to recommend your next girlfriend or boyfriend. It is so personnel. However, for the new comer to vinyl, these two new Denon all in one turntable options, that were introduced at the CEDIA 2018 show, offer cost effective all in one solutions. Providing the prospective purchaser with Denon’s decades of audio experience all rolled into one vinyl playback solution; turntable, arm, cartridge, pre-amp and USBDAC option.

Overview

Coming fully assembled and aligned and with its own built in phono equalizer, this turntable package is truly plug-and-play. Connect its phono outputs to your amplifiers line inputs, drop a vinyl disc on the turntable and your ready for your ears to be entertained. If you want to use your receivers or amplifiers phono input, the turntable provides a phono equalizer bypass switch. For those of you who seek an improved musical experience, the moving magnet (MM) cartridge can be replaced. Denon make several including there renowned moving coil (MC) cartridge, the DL103, the one that started it all!

The S shaped tone arm is said to improve harmonic distortion and provides auto-lift and playback stop 10 seconds after the arm reaches the end of the album. Helping to prevent damage to the album and wear on the stylus.

The removable dust cover also doubles as a stand to support the albums cover and artwork. Being removable it aids in the reduction of vibration pickup and transfer to the turntable, helping to keep the sound free from interfering signals and feedback.

The turntable supports three platter playback speeds, 33 1/3, 45 and 78 RPM. Each speed being accurately maintained by integrated sensors that control the DC motor, thereby keeping unwanted speed variations to a minimum. The platter is belt driven, further helping to isolate it from any motor noise and vibration.

The 450USB provides one additional feature to the vinyl enthusiast, an integrated USB-A port that allows you to digitize your vinyl collection as you listen. The port supports both MP3 and WAV file formats. Denon also provides  a custom software package, Musicut, but it ONLY runs on the Windows 10 operating system. It provides one touch recording and simplifies the recording and archiving of the digitized vinyl recordings. Unfortunately it only supports MP3!

Pricing: DP-400 $499.00, DP-450USB $599.00

Technical Specifications

• Comes ready to go with the cartridge fully pre-alligned and setup.
• Comes with detachable dust cover.
• DC motor with built in speed control.
• Belt Drive.
• Wow & flutter 0.1%.
• Automatic return at the end of the record.
• 33 1/3, 45 and 78 RPM
• MM cartridge output 2.5mV @ 1KHz.
• Built in phono pre-amp that can be bypassed.
• Pre-amp output 150mV @ 1KHz. (Will drive the line level inputs for amplifiers with no disc pre-amp)
• Pre-amp frequency response 20-20,000Hz.
• Signal to noise ratio 62dB.
• USB output – DP-450USB. (Musicut software included)

Overall these two turntables seem to be reasonably good value for money. However there are a lot of options at this price point, and for those with a really restricted budget there are even less costly options that provide very similar functionality.

See here for further Denon USA details, or here for the UK Denon site.

There is a huge range of turntables, arms and cartridges and creating the best match at a cost effective point can be very daunting to the vinyl newcomer. Also setting up these combinations can be very challenging. Fortunately the above two turntable combinations and the following two links provide the new vinyl lover a simple introduction to this amazing experience.

For similar low cost complete turntable configurations see here at Pro-Ject and here at Music Hall.

If you’re a bit of a vinyl enthusiast see here for a description of my Thorens TD160S upgrades.