A dubious first attempt (Denon D-G1MD)

Member Name: hurstyfish

Product:	Denon D-G1MD
Date:	14/05/02 (435 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent sound quality, Reads CD-r's and has radio text functions like RDS, Records to tape/MD from a variety of sources

Disadvantages: Badly designed remote control, MD function breaks down after a (relatively) short time, Speakers only 60W

The DG1MD has a sleek design and as a first attempt from Denon at a MD/CD/tape/tuner minisystem comes out looking very attractive. The speakers give excellent, crystal-clear sound quality, despite their size and reflect Denon's audio skills. It is fantastic to be able to record to tape/MD from radio/CD/MD/tape and this was one of the primary reasons for my purchasing the system. Another helpful function is the ability to set a timer to play your desired source at the desired time - handy for waking up to your favourite tunes in the early morning. However, Denon let me down.

Within 8 months of purchasing the product, I started to notice problems - the MD player would not recognise some of my discs (upon checking with a personal MD player they were in good condition). Next, some of the tracks on MDs, when first played would suffer from skipping / stalling and all other manner of disc reading problems. Eventually the troubles reached a level where MD playback had become impossible: It would take the system several attempts to register the disk, and even then it would refuse to play probably. Mostly discs did not work at all and recording had also become impossible - the player would not recognise brand new, blank minidiscs. I

am now left with a mini system with excellent CD, tape and tuner quality and efficiency which is not able to fill my requirements because of its inability to play/record minidiscs. A sore disappointmeny (and waste of money???). One last complaint is the remote control unit, which reflects the fact that this is a first-time effort from Denon: it is not at all ergonomically designed and can not be called user-friendly, you often have to spend a long time searching for the desired function amongst the abundance of tiny buttons.

Summary: