Denon 3000F
The Denon 3000F - listed in the period press as the DN-3000F - was the early exception in the compact disc market. It was a professional player built for broadcast and recording studio work, at a time when nearly every other CD deck was aimed at consumers. Modern Recording (October 1983, p.64) introduced it as exactly that. Consumer players offered random access and programmability, the magazine explained, but their access times were often far too slow for the split-second timing that studio and on-air work demands.
The professional features were concrete. A line-out lever let an operator set the pickup position in advance and bring up music instantly, with no waiting for the mechanism to lock on. The front panel carried real VU meters, something found on no home player of the era, and the audio outputs were balanced. Denon also fitted the transport with mechanics and servo systems far costlier than those used in consumer decks (Modern Recording, October 1983, p.68). Audio (April 1984, p.38) devoted a whole feature to the question, "What makes a CD player professional?", with the 3000F as the answer.
The measurements backed it up. Modern Recording's lab work (October 1983, p.66) found distortion of 0.006 percent at bass frequencies, 0.04 percent at −24 dB midrange, and linearity accurate within 0.5 dB from 0 dB down past −80 dB. Unweighted signal-to-noise ratio, band-limited to 20 kHz, was 93 dB below maximum output. SMPTE-IM distortion measured 0.01 percent at maximum output. Audio (April 1984, p.40) also tested its toughness by pounding on the console top during playback. The player did not mistrack.
Beyond those reviews, the record on the 3000F is thin. No production dates, pricing, or service documentation have surfaced in general circulation. What survives is a broadcast-oriented, first-generation professional CD player from the company that built the first PCM digital audio recorder used in commercial record production (Audio, June 1986, p.187).
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