Continuing on my series of disc-player reviews, I wanted to incorporate at least one 'modded' unit. I am of the opinion that to extract the final ounces of fidelityacomponent has to be thoroughly tweaked; beef up a power supply here, change a connector there, upgradeacapacitor elsewhere, etc. Each change in itself may not yield an audible improvement or change, but layer on several changes and you can yield a substantial improvement. This pursuit is certainly as much art as it is science, and is also replete with snake-oil and dubious claims. In the end the only thing that matters is what a component sounds like, and that is what I intend to find out here.

Apr 21, 2012 Housings - The D2000 housing is plastic, and has some damping material adhered to the rear of the cup, and a ring of fibrous acoustic wadding. The D5000 and D7000 use mahogany wood ear cups and are bare. The D5000 housing has a satin finish and a printed logo (which can wear off rather easily). One of the many “space-age” super-materials to come out of the NASA program, it works perfectly in the metal cups of the TH-600, the wood cups of your TH-900, and even the plastic chambers of the Denon D2000. To treat the crucial driver housing we discovered another new material that is more effective and easier to work with.

• Denon D2000 Damping Mods Dthx30/xx Format Utility Ansi Table Pdf Anytone At-d878uv Firmware Update Good Headphones, need a case or bag, plug pops out easy.
• All it requires is stuffing the ear pads with fiberloft to dampen the bass a tiny bit. This mod was originally designed for the Denon AH-D2000 and D5000, but.
• They fit: Denon AH-D5000/AH-D7000 and Fostex TH-600 / TH-610, Massdrop TH-X00 / TR-X00, & Creative E-MU. They DO NOT FIT Denon D2000. SIGN UP FOR THE WAITING LIST! These cups are very popular, if they are currently sold out, please Contact Us to be put on the waiting list. Gray shades are to be cut out.

Here is the basic jist of the high-end disc player market. The basic innards (drive, DAC, etc) are made by a handful of multi-nationals. Most high-end manufacturers then take these innards and add-on the rest of the componentry to their bent. That secondary effort (and cost) usually focuses on the power supply, output stage, connectors, chassis and cosmetics.

Without the benefit of having data to test my hypothesis, I would hazard a guess that the modded route would be more cost-effective for the consumer. This is mostly because the stock unit benefits from lower cost forassembly (due to high volumes and mass production) and cosmetics (since stock players usually do not feature expensive finishes). The added costs for a modded unit likely are; the minimal cost of the replaced (and discarded) parts, the labor to install the modsand maybe shipping to/from the mod shop. Again, I am just guessing, but I would estimate that a modded unit with the same components would cost a fair bit less than the same unit from a high-end manufacturer.

This review focuses on the quality of the two-channel audio playback of this player. Follow this link for an excellent assessment of the DVD-3910 stock unit, including video performance.

The Mod Shop

These mods are marketed in North America by Underwood HiFi and the modifications are done by Parts ConneXion.

The principal of the Parts ConneXion is Chris Johnson. Yes, the very same who founded Sonic Frontiers (in 1988). Sonic Frontiers operated three lines of business; high-end electronics under the Sonic Frontiers badge, mid-tier equipment under the Anthem label and a DIY business under the Parts Connection name. In 1998 the Paradigm Group purchased Sonic Frontiers, and since then Sonic Frontiers menu has been limited to solid-state home theater products under the Anthem badge.

In 2002 Chris Johnson and Victoria Switzer cut outand found Parts ConneXion,and took with them several of the design team from Sonic Frontiers. This new outfit offersaparts catalog for the DIY market,and after-market mods for a variety of product.

Eager to test out my theory on the economic efficiency of after-market mods, Iasked Chris why he choose to do mods when his team is fully capable of manufacturing disc players in-house. Especially considering this team in the past had produced many highly acclaimed models such as the Transport3, Processor3, SFD-2 mkIIand SFT-1. Chris' response confirmed my theory, and to my wife's chagrin gave my delusions of being a self-proclaimed economist more credence. Here is his take on mods.

Chris parted company from other modders I have talked with, when he says that not every product and every component is a candidate for modifications. Mods should only be made when the result yields significant sonic improvements for a cost that can be justified to the consumer. Specifically, he felt that to match the video performance and technology of the current stream of universal players (like this Denon), would require an investment so massive that only the large Japanese players have the sales volume to play that game. These huge investments include industrializing (bringing to production) DVI, HDMI, video upscaling, DVD-A and SACD licenses (an unverified source has quoted $80,000 annually for an SACD license). Unfortunately, these mass-produced units also save money by skimping on design and components in the power-supply, the analog output stage and analog output connectors. This is where the mod-house steps in, and augments only the analog audio performance, in this case. And who better to do this than a design team that has delivered much acclaimed products in the past, I cannot second that acclaim since I have not had first hand experience of those units.

According to Chris, in the case of this specific model, Denon is using the most advanced DAC on the market, but that is not what is significant, since the DAC is more advanced than the formats it is converting. So he focused his efforts on the areas of this player that he felt would yield the most improvements. Details of the mod are listed above, they can be summarized as upgrades to the chassis damping, linear power-supply for analog audio sections and numerous upgrades to components in the analogaudio output path after the DAC, including the all important op amp.

I will be installing some wood cups on my D2K’s, and will be making a guide for it! I wanted to note it all down and show my progress, so here it is!

Introduction

These Denon AH-D5000 mahoganny cups were bought from Mark Lawton, for a very reasonable price, over at Lawton Audio!
As you can see they come with the Xtreme Dynamat already installed, within the cup, which dampens the sound – a guide by Mark can be found over at Head-fi!
I will also mention the sonic characteristics that I notice being different. However, I bought the wooden cups mainly due to their amazing looks!

First of all here is my disassembly guide – which will help you in understanding on how to open your Denon’s up!

Drilling
It was a relatively easy process filled with a lot of trial and error.
I didn’t want to over-shoot the drilling, as it would be irreversible, so I took my time testing from 4mm all the way up to 7mm, trying each drill bit (4,5,6), before getting to 7mm.
I was surprised 7mm was the one I ended up with – I initially thought 5mm would be fine. If you see the picture of the the drill and the drill bits, you can imagine my surprise picking up something so wide in diameter for something so small.

In terms of actually drilling, I inserted the drill piece directly in the middle, from the pre-made holes that were made for the D5K. This insured I would get a nice straight drill, and one that would be centred.

Whilst drilling, I went slowly in, rarely going to the full speed of the drills capacity. I also did a lot of stop checks – imagine it as quality control in a manufacturers line. As initially I didn’t drill that deep, and when I put the cups, after a little nip and tuck, they wouldn’t go fully down to the “lip” of the driver. So I re-drilled again, and was again surprised on how deep the hole went.

Denon D2000 Damping Mods For Sale

The best way to measure the depth is to see the driver, and the driver plastic bits sticking out – align your drill to go around that depth, if not a tad more – this should give you a nice snug fit. I felt that if I had also gone to 8mm, the snug fit wouldn’t be there, and I would be left with a partially loose D5K cup. The 7mm was a perfect drill size for the process.

Aftermath
After finishing drilling, the holes didn’t look pretty, nor did my floor as a matter of fact. So when doing this, do it on something easy to mop up – luckily enough I have wooden floors so a quick hoover did the trick. If you have carpet flooring…I would do it somewhere else, unless you want loads of little mahogany pieces littered on your carpet.

Now having drilled, the dampened material had almost, stuck to it, some wooden deposits over it. I grabbed an old sock (don’t worry it was clean!) and cleaned the D5K inner cup.

Denon D2000 Damping Mods Download

After finishing the clean-up job, I put inserted the cup on the driver, and to my surprise, even screwed in the screws that came with the D2K’s. Some of the screws even had to be force screwed, almost like the wood hadn’t been drilled deep enough to accommodate the D2K screw.

Finally, I added the screws of the frame-to-driver, and after a little fielding about everything was in place.

The final result is stunning. I can now just stare into my Denon’s knowing the work and patience I put in really paid off in the end.

Sound Quality Differences:
-Stock D2K cup
-Dampened mahogany D5K cup

So here was the real test – was there any sonic differences.
I do have to say that the HeadRoom graphs pretty much sup up the sonic differences.

Denon D2000 Damping Mods Chart

With the D5K cups I got the following:
-Mids are a little stronger
-Highs are possibly a little bright
-Lows are definitely more present
-Soundstage is slightly better
-Decay is a little better

So overall, it was an improvement – I do however tone down (EQ) the highs bit a tinny bit – I’m talking about less than 1dB difference here – and it allows me to enjoy my music fully, without any sharp highs. (that said that could be my tastes!)

I hope you enjoyed reading this, and hope this helps y’all in your mods!
As they say, the only difference between the D5K and D2K is the cups and the wire, I can see why people would choose to buy a D2K and modify it. It’s much more fun to do so and much cheaper!

–TotallydubbedHD