Denon has been making audio for more than a century and has a reputation for making high-quality audio. Now the company has added a couple of new turntables to its Design Series line-up of audio products. The DP-400 and DP-450USB are aimed at the middle sector of the market and are designed to be easy to set-up and use, while still matching the company’s CEOL Designer Series of hi-fi units, as well as Denon’s classic 43cm components.
Both turntables have a built-in pre-amp, making them suitable for a wide range of audio systemsThe DP-450USB features analog-to-digital conversion, making it easy to transfer LPs and singles directly to any USB storage device.
Denon first began making record players back in 1910 so they should have got the hang of things by now. These two latest turntables are designed to be simple to install and use, and come with a clear set-up guide and a high-quality moving magnet cartridge already installed in a universal headshell that connects easily to the tonearm. There’s a switchable phono stage which means they’ll even work with amplifiers and systems that don’t have a dedicated phono input – any line or auxiliary input will do just fine.
The Denon DP-400 is built on a heavy, well-damped plinth and just 41cm wide, in order to save space and fit in with the look and width of Denon’s Design Series. The weighted platter is belt-driven, with playback at 331/3rpm, 45 rpm and 78 rpm. There’s an integrated sensor to control the speed and ensure pitch accuracy. The tonearm auto-lifts and playback stops at the end of a record.
The newly engineered precision S-shaped tonearm has been designed to reduce distortion and is fitted with a moving magnet cartridge on a removable headshell. It’s easy to upgrade the bundled cartridge to a more expensive moving coil model if needed. The built-in phono stage can also be bypassed, enabling the turntable to be used with amps with their own dedicated phono section, or even specialized offboard phono amps.
With the Denon DP-450USB model, copying favorite LPs and singles to a computer very simple. It’s basically the same turntable as the DP-400 but with the addition of a built-in digital-to-analog converter that can transfer music directly to any USB storage device that’s connected to the front-panel USB Type A port. There’s no need to connect the turntable to a computer: simply plug in the storage device, select compressed MP3 or uncompressed CD-quality WAV recording, and play the record.
Recorded files can then be played from the USB storage device on a computer, or car stereo system. So if your favorite album never made it to CD or streaming service, it’s a simple task to transfer it to digital. To edit recordings on a PC, Denon offers MusiCut software for Windows 10, enabling MP3 files to be manipulated, organized, and tagged with metadata. The MusiCut software can be downloaded from the Denon website free of charge.
Features:
- Plug and play design with pre-installed moving magnet cartridge
- Heavy, damped platter and plinth to suppress resonances
- Newly designed S-shaped tonearm with end-of-side auto-lift and stop
- 331/3rpm, 45 rpm and 78 rpm speeds with sensor-controlled stability
- Integrated phono stage with on/off switch for connection to any amplifier or system
- Dustcover can be used to display album artwork
- 41cm wide to complement Denon Design Series components
- DP-450USB adds analog-to-digital converter and USB port for direct MP3/WAV recording to USB storage devices
Pricing: DP-400 (€ 499 / £ 449) and DP-450USB (€ 599 / £ 529)
More info: www.denon.co.uk
