That Denon is a rather cool unit. I love rack mount equipment, and professional equipment is usually built a bit tougher. Separate stereo and multichannel outputs as well. Does it do DSD natively? If I had of seen that before I might have got it rather than my second Oppo!
It sure would be nice if we could lobby the receiver manufacturers to start putting multichannel analog inputs on their products again.
How many? Is 8 enough anymore?
Since I don't know of any blu-ray players that decode Atmos internally, I think 8 will suffice. I just need enough for my Surround Master.
I had a Denon UDP-2012 when it worked it was ok, it lasted 3 years then it started 'jumping' on CDs and not recognising DVD/BD/SACD. I had a 5 year guarantee on it, as I bought it from Richer Sounds (UK retailer). I put it in for repair with them, and it was unfixable (they had it 2+ months and tried) as not just a laser fault, but circuitry as well - but I got all my purchase cost back and put it towards an OPPO 203. So I was happy.
Interesting, I picked up a really beat-up used one 5-6 years ago now and it's only ever failed to recognize one disc (John Lennon's Imagine Blu-Ray #2 from the 2018 box set - I think there was an authoring error on the first run of these? A replacement copy ended up working fine). It does lock up every once in a while, but unplugging the power cord always brings it back.
