Some more notes on Denon RCD-M41DAB
Back in January I bought a new micro Hi-Fi after the transformer in my old one failed and I couldn't repair it. Since then I've been pretty happy using Denon RCD-M41DAB for listening to music and radio. I previously did some measurements on its output amplifier and found it meets its ratings in regards to power and distortion. In any case, that was more to satisfy my electrical engineering curiosity and I'm not particularly sensitive to reproduction quality. However after extended use two problems did pop up. Since I see this model is still being sold, I thought I might do a short follow up.
The first thing is that when streaming audio to the Hi-Fi over Bluetooth there are about 2 seconds of lag. It looks as if there's some kind of an audio processing buffer inside the RCD-M41DAB, or it might simply be the choice of the codec used for wireless transfer. When listening to music the delay isn't that annoying. For example, when clicking "next track" or changing volume on the music player on the phone it takes about 2 seconds before you can actually hear the change. However this lag does make a Bluetooth-connected RCD-M41DAB completely useless as an audio output when playing videos or anything interactive. The lag happens on iOS and Android and I'm pretty sure this is not something related to my smartphone, since when I'm using Bluetooth-connected headphones, there is no discernible lag there.
The other annoyance is that the CD player has problems reading some CDs in my collection. Apparently it reads the table of contents fine, because the number of tracks is displayed correctly. However it has problems seeking to tracks. For example, one disc won't play any tracks at all and I can just hear the head continuously seeking. Another disc won't start playing the first track, but if I skip it manually, player will find and play the second one just fine. All such discs play normally in the CD drive in my desktop computer and other CD players I've tried. It still might be that the discs have some kind of an error in them or have bad reflectivity (all of the problematic ones are kind of niche releases I bought from Bandcamp), but other players apparently are able to work around it.
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Thank you for posting this.
I just bought a refurbished Denon DM41 and had the same problem with the bluetooth lag. I thought it might have a fault but it must be a common problem. I playing from a Samsung Note 10 plus. Its not a problem but makes viewing associated videos really annoying.
I have also expreienced the bluetooth loosing volume or dropping out for a second or two, but I do have it loacted right next to my WiFi Router so that may be the cause.