Denon DNP-720AE

I bought this as a quick fix easy solution to music in my front room. I am sorry to say it has been neither. The unit is very fussy with wifi dropping internet radio at the first chance and streaming from my server (WHS2011) is hit and miss to say the least. I have now run a LAN connection to the unit and this has improved the radio although by no means perfect as for the streaming there has been little improvement there. When scrolling through folders the unit often stops as if trying to catch up. All in all it is a shame as paired with my Audiolab LX (Original) and Monitor audio S2 speakers music for general listening or ironing (Yes I iron) is very admirable and an enjoyable listen. The I pad control is useless but this is a minor point.

I have to say I am not impressed and I am glad I only paid a couple hundred pounds for this item if I had paid full retail I would have been very upset with the purchase.

Save your frustration and spend a little bit more and buy a Cambridge Audio it works over wifi with no issues and the i pad interface is a joy to use.

would be interesting to know how good is the digital output. cause lot of us already have our desired dac and can keep without going for the higher priced offerings from CA/marantz/pioneer

If I use an external DAC, how should this compare to the competition, specially agains a Squeezebox? I guess the sound quality shouldn't be very different with a FLAC or ALAC from this to a much more expensive media server?

Yes, the internal streaming client implementation, DAC and analogue output stage. And yes, the same amp and speakers were used for both.

I'm confused by what job this does and how it affects sound quality - is sound quality down to the internal DAC? I assume the same amplifier/speakers were used when comparing with the Cambridge Audio product.