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What a miracle it is that vinyl records and turntables have made a massive resurgence over the past two decades. How often in your lifetime have you seen an obsolete technology fade in popularity… and then rebound, becoming popular again? Vinyl album and turntable sales took a simultaneous down-turn in the late 1980’s. Sales of both hardware and software continued to sink for two decades, as CDs and then digital downloads soared in popularity among music fans. 

Beginning in 2007, vinyl sales rose for the first time since 1987, and have risen every year since. USA annual music sales of vinyl LP’s surpassed 5 million units in 2011. By 2020, that number had grown to almost 25 million. Turntable and phono cartridge sales began rising as well. According to Wikipedia, “In 2022, Taylor Swift's Midnights became the first major album release to have its vinyl sales outpace CDs since 1987, with approximately 600,000 sold in the US and 80,000 sold in the UK at the time of the record occurring.”

Today Gramophone celebrates the introduction of a new turntable, Denon’s DP- 3000NE. Denon is one of the world’s most recognized audio brands. They manufactured their first gramophone in 1910, and have manufactured broadcast studio-quality turntables for over 4 decades. The new DP-3000NE is their best consumer-grade turntable yet. What makes it so special?

The DP-3000NE is beautifully designed, with a really solid plinth, finished in a dark ebony wood veneer and a satin feel. Denon did a great job with the fit and finish of this ‘table, with the plinth’s beveled edges giving it a classic look. It’s also surprisingly heavy, offering a stable platform for your vinyl.

The tonearm is a complete re-design, with Denon adding a new arm height adjustment feature. Yet it has been designed with an eye toward simplicity, with roughly half the parts count of some similar designs. You can easily customize your phono cartridge performance, or with the removable headshell, the performance of each of your cartridges. The removable headshell makes swapping in a mono cartridge, or a cartridge that will help brighten up your older recordings, a snap.  

Direct drive ‘tables in general have a different feel and customer experience than belt drive units, as the electronics lend themselves to a very fast start-up and correspondingly quick stop. These requests from broadcast studios for a quick start-up and slowdown, along with reliability under heavy, 24-hour-a-day use, were the impetus for a direct drive being invented in the early 1970s. The customer experience when using the DP-3000NE is exceptional, with a great feel to the start / stop button, and a near-immediate “up to correct speed” time. This turntable can literally run for days and not vary from the correct speed. 

Rotational stability adds greatly to your enjoyment of an album, and the DP-3000NE is a stability champion. Denon has upgraded an extremely reliable motor with a new power supply and electronic control package that enables them to get better performance than they have ever offered.

Their engineers employ a new control algorithm, Space Vector Pulse Width Modulation, which significantly improves the preciseness of the electronic motor regulation. Thus speed accuracy and consistency are improved, and total harmonic distortion is reduced, for rock-solid speed stability.  

The massive platter is heavy and adds to the turntable’s excellent speed stability. The platter’s underside is lined with a special damping material, which is very non-resonant, minimizing vibrations for more enjoyable music and less distortion.   

Finally, the DP-3000NE features four specially designed footers, with multiple layers of alternating rubber and heavy ABS, with a spring in the center.  This both helps make it easy for you to balance the turntable and minimizes any vibrations that might interfere with your music. To sum up, Denon’s DP-3000NE is a tour de force - their finest consumer-grade turntable ever. Check it out at SKY by Gramophone!