Coinciding with news from Neilsen that finds record sales are up from 6.4 million to 7.6 million in 2018—an increase of approximately a 20 percent—comes the introduction of the Denon DP400 ($499) and DP-450USB ($599) turntables.
According to Denon, the launch of these two new turntables was driven by its years of experience designing consumer audio equipment, and as a result, the DP-450USB and DP-450 incorporate modern technologies to maximize the performance of classic analog audio.
“We're seeing a renaissance of vinyl listening. Whether it's the high-touch process, superior sound quality or sense of nostalgia, consumers are hungry to experience and engage with their music with better sound and performance than we've seen in years,” states Joel Sietsema, senior vice president of brand management, Sound United.
“Denon's legacy of great sound started with its first gramophone built in 1910, and those roots enable us to deliver the latest technology and some of the highest audio quality available.
“The DP-450USB and DP-400 feature new, sophisticated designs and time-tested engineering to provide fantastic vinyl listening experiences.”
Denon DP-450USB and DP-450 Turntables Include Phono Preamps
Announced at the recently completed CEDIA Expo 2018 show in San Diego, the Denon DP-450USB and DP-450 turntables bundle a number of features to allow integrators to quickly set up their clients up for vinyl nirvana.
The turntables feature weighted, belt-driven platters, and provide playback speeds of 33 1/3, 45 and 78 RPM. They also feature integrated sensors to control playback speed, helping ensure improved pitch accuracy.
Denon also includes S-shaped tonearms that are said to reduce distortion and prefitted moving magnet (MM) phono cartridges. Denon says that if integrators want to upgrade their clients' turntables to moving coil (MC) cartridges, the tonearms easily accept those types of upgrades.
Related: Denon AVRs Support Dolby Atmos, Amazon Alexa
The turntables also include auto lift and playback stop functions. These functions automatically lift the tonearms 10 seconds after they reach the groove end and the turntables' platters will stop spinning.
The turntables incorporate built-in phono preamplifiers to aid in their turnkey installation capabilities, and integrators can bypass the built-in phono preamplifiers and pair the turntables with a preamp of their choice.
The DP-450USB turntable also incorporates a built-in digital-to-analog converter (DAC) to help facilitate the conversion of analog music to digital formats for the transfer of digital files to storage devices connected to the turntable's USB-A port.
Further aiding that digital transfer process, Denon bundles the DP-450USB turntable with Windows-based music management software to allow homeowners to digitize their analog records in either the lossy MP3 format or the lossless WAV format.
