Denon DBP-1611UD Universal Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Player, Black Reviews

Average Customer Rating - 5.0 out of 5 stars

1 customer review

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic value, supports all disc formats. Great sound!, December 9, 2010
Pros: A Netflix-streaming 3D-ready Blu-Ray player that also plays Super Audio CD's and DVD-Audio disks, plus a USB port to play MP3 files from external storage. Great sound and picture. Great value for the money.

Cons: Does not decode playlist files, FLACs, WMA lossless or Apple lossless codecs. Youtube not yet working (but firmware upgrade expected). Outputs limited to HDMI, Coax, and stereo analog (as opposed to discrete outputs for respectively channel).

I have been waiting for the release of the 1611UD for several months, having missed my shot at the Oppo. Denon is a great brand, and this unit replaced my older (and much heavier) Denon SACD/DVD-A/DVD player because we needed Blu-Ray and Netflix in the living room. The new player had to be compatible with an existing library of SACDs and DVD-Audio disks. (I download high-rez music tracks from HDTracks.com and Bowers & Wilkins' Society of Sound, consequently burn those tracks to DVD-Audio disks.)

The unit was easy to set up, and my first action was to test the surround sound with some favorite movie scenes, including the lobby gunfight surrounded by "The Matrix" and the truck chase in "Terminator 3." Though these were just regular DVD's, the sound and picture were terrific. The only Blu-Ray discs around were "Amadeus", "Fool's Gold" (stupid movie, but beautiful scenes), and "A Single Man." All played flawlessly. Sound and picture were terrific and I hurriedly forgot about the system and just got into the movies without further adjustments. I did test the picture quality of the HDMI cable against a full set of HD component cables, and saw no difference. That was great because I be able to pull all of those component cables out from behind the system. This unit is making me a believer in the sound and picture quality skilled with just an HDMI cable.

For SACD's, the 1611UD lets you choose between multi-channel output (through the HDMI or Coax), or stereo output through two analog jacks. If the disc is multi-channel (like Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" 5.1), the Denon will step it down to stereo if you want, or you can listen to it in multi-channel surround. (If you just want a pure 2-channel analog experience, there is a "Pure Direct" button on the front panel that shuts off all digital and video output, and will even shut off the display, so that the Denon is working solely to produce the clearest 2 dike signal.) My home-burned DVD-A's also worked without a problem and sounded great.

While playing stereo music, I jumped back and forth from the HDMI output to the analog outputs, and the analog signal was louder, though not necessarily any clearer.

We don't have a 3D television, so no comment about that.

The network hook-up was truly plug-and-play. I use a Linksys Powerline system (using the house's internal power wiring). All I have to do was plug an ethernet cable into the back of the Denon and it took care of the rest. I activated the unit for Netflix and was streaming a movie inside 5 minutes of set up. I do not yet have a home network set up, so enjoy not tested the Denon for playing files directly from my PC.

My only real gripes are with the functionality of the USB jack. The jack is on the front panel, which makes it very accessible. I plugged in several thumbdrives and even a 250GB external hard drive that were loaded with music files. While the Denon take a few seconds to analyze each folder when you open it, 320kps MP3 files were played without a problem. In fact, they sounded really good. The Denon would not play FLACs, WMA lossless files, Apple lossless files, and would not play high-rez m4a files, even though WMA and m4a are listed as supported codecs. (Denon is not alone here. Other devices that claim to support WMA always go amiss when I try the WMA lossless. Glad I spent a whole week ripping my CD library to WMA lossless.)

Also, if you create a playlist on your computer and put it on the external drive, the Denon will not recognize it. (I tried both WinAmp and Windows Media Player to make playlists.) You can create a playlist on the Denon, but as far as I can tell there is no way to save it. Once you unplug the USB storage device, your playlist disappears.

Come on, Denon! Let's fix these things with a firmware upgrade, especially if we could use these great processors to play high-resolution FLAC files. If Denon fixes that, next this unit coupled with a 250GB external hard drive would be the perfect media server. Sit back and call up 600 CD's worth of music from the remote control.

Still, as it is now, if you're having a f¨ēte and know the songs you want to hear, just load a bunch of MP3's in the same folder on a thumb drive, plug it into the Denon, set it to random, and you're good for hours of music with no CD's to fuss about.

For [...] and free shipping, this unit is a great pro.

Edited to add: the HDMI signal is actually louder when listening in 2 channel. I've discovered the one main advantage to putting out 2 channel music through the HDMI cable (rather than just the analog cables) is that it includes the subwoofer contained by the mix (so it's really 2.1 channel). So, you have all the versatility you could want for your own particular system.


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