We Didn’t Expect This From Denon: Discovering the DNP-2000NE

Denon is one of the biggest names in home cinema, but its serious two-channel hi-fi products can be much easier to overlook.

That is exactly what happened with the Denon DNP-2000NE.

We brought one into the showroom because we wanted to stop reading about it on paper and actually use it properly — not simply as a network audio player, but as the digital front end of a serious two-channel system.

What happened next genuinely caught us off guard.

More Than A Streamer

The DNP-2000NE is easy to describe as a network audio player, but that barely explains what it can actually do.

It combines streaming, DAC duties and a variable analogue output in one chassis, which means it can also operate as the digital pre-amplifier in a suitably configured system.

HDMI ARC gives it a very practical role in a modern system as well. A compatible television can feed audio directly into the DNP, while the variable output opens the door to using it ahead of external amplification.

Add HEOS, AirPlay 2, Roon Ready support, USB-B, optical and coaxial digital inputs, Ultra AL32 Processing and its quad ESS DAC implementation, and suddenly this is not simply a convenience streamer sitting on the edge of a system.

It can become the digital hub of the system.

View the Denon DNP-2000NE Network Player

The Big Revelation: Using It As A Pre-Amplifier

For us, this was the real surprise.

Rather than looking at the DNP-2000NE purely as a source component, we started using it as the pre-amplifier — taking its variable output into Denon amplification such as the PMA-1700NE and PMA-3000NE, effectively allowing the amplifier to concentrate on power amplification duties.

That changed the character of the system in a way we were not expecting.

The first thing we noticed was the sense that the noise floor had simply disappeared.

Not in the sense of us having measured a laboratory noise figure, but in the way the system presented music. It sounded cleaner, calmer and more composed, with less apparent hash around the edges.

There was refinement, but not softness. There was control, but not sterility. The system simply sounded more settled.

That was the moment the DNP-2000NE stopped feeling like “another streamer” and started feeling like a very serious component in its own right.

A Quick Showroom Take

Rather than over-produce the whole thing, we recorded a very quick showroom reaction.

It is only 34 seconds. No studio production and no elaborate editing — simply a genuine reaction to what we heard from the DNP-2000NE.

Why It Matters

There are plenty of customers with a very good integrated amplifier already in their system.

What interested us here was the idea that products such as the PMA-1700NE and PMA-3000NE can be looked at a little differently when partnered with the DNP-2000NE.

Instead of simply seeing them as integrated amplifiers, there is a real case for using them as the muscle in the system while allowing the DNP-2000NE to take control of the digital front end and pre-amplifier duties.

For somebody building a serious digital system — or trying to simplify an existing one without giving up sound quality — that is a very interesting proposition.

And for a system that revolves around a television as well as music, HDMI ARC makes the proposition even more useful.

Our View

We expected the DNP-2000NE to be capable.

We did not expect it to make us rethink the role it could play in a serious Denon system quite as quickly as it did.

Used simply as a streamer, it is already interesting.

Used as a pre-amplifier, it became something much more compelling.

That is why it is now on demonstration at Melbourne Hi Fi.

View the Denon DNP-2000NE Network Player