Denon DVD-A1UD (£4500)

摘要

Universal does not mean forever. The first 'universal', HDMI-equipped CD/SACD/DVD-A players appeared five years ago when the likes of Denon, Pioneer and Marantz were competing in their own digital arms race. Compared to the £4500 Denon DVD-A1UD that graces these pages, those machines now look decidedly archaic. The intervening period has seen the rise and fall of HD DVD, the evolution of HDMI to accommodate new features and standards including losslessly packed multichannel audio formats from Dolby and DTS plus, of course, the birth and dominance of Sony's Blu-ray disc.