Denon Introduces First HDCD Products; DVD Player And CD Changer are First HDCD Products From This Leading Japanese Consumer Electronics Manufacturer.

UNION CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 25, 1998--Denon Electronics, a world leader in digital audio technology and Japan's oldest manufacturer of audio components, recently announced its first two HDCD(R) equipped products, the DVD-5000 DVD player and the DCM-5000 100-disc CD changer system.

The DVD-5000 will be available in September 1998 and the DCM-5000 will be available in December 1998. Both products will be sold in leading audio retail stores around the world that carry Denon products including The Good Guys in the United States.

"Denon's reputation has been built around developing products with state-of-the-art audio performance. HDCD's superb sound coupled with the large number of HDCD CDs now available from popular artists makes HDCD decoding an important feature for high performance DVD and CD player products," said Stephen Baker, Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Denon.

With these new products, Denon joins a long list of top quality audio manufacturers offering HDCD players. HDCD has become a worldwide standard in the high fidelity audio market with over 100 models of HDCD players available from such high quality manufacturers as Adcom, Arcam, California Audio Labs, Linn, Luxman, Madrigal (Mark Levinson), and Rotel. The DVD-5000 is one of the first DVD players with HDCD decoding for high quality playback of audio CDs.

"Pacific Microsonics is very excited that Denon, with such a rich history of producing superb audio products, has added HDCD to these new products," said Steve Fields, Vice President of Sales for Pacific Microsonics. "We are particularly pleased that Denon has added HDCD to the DVD-5000 because DVD players are one of the fastest growing consumer electronics products ever introduced."

Developed by Pacific Microsonics, HDCD(R) (High Definition Compatible Digital(R)) is a patented process for delivering on Compact Disc the full richness and detail of the original microphone feed. HDCD encoded CDs sound better because they are encoded with 20-bits of real musical information as compared to 16-bits for all other CDs. HDCD provides more dynamic range, a focused 3-D sound stage, and extremely natural musical timbre. HDCD recordings offer improved sound quality on any CD player, and when played on HDCD equipped players they provide the ultimate in sonic fidelity. Consumers have purchased over 75 million HDCD recordings.