|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
137.148.183.154
In Reply to: RE: An Oppo by any other name, ... posted by jusbe on March 26, 2015 at 04:02:03
Can you discuss how the sound is different than stock? Which do you prefer?
Follow Ups:
Sure.
I admired the efforts made by Oppo on the original 105D (which I found out is actually manufactured by Rotel under special license). But my reservations about the Sabre experience have always been
a) the sound is insubstantial, and
b) there are treble artefacts I dislike, and
c) I cannot escape the perception that the Sabre sound *aims* for a very good simulation of a performance, rather than a reproduction of the performance itself (sorry that's not very clear - I find this hard to describe). I think there is still too much calculation going on - almost as if the Sabre cannot decide what sound to make, even as it is making it.
Joe's work on the player is really excellent. To me, it sounds as if he has found a way to 'mask' the nervous over-calculation of the Sabre DAC, to a large extent. He talked at length about his work on addressing some of the bitstream artefacts which lead to those qualities above. The JLTi player now sounds much more listenable to my ears. The 'chopped liver' treble is almost entirely gone. Soundstaging is really very good. Tonal differences are almost ultra-fi good, and I can see why many will be impressed.But I still feel cheated by it, somehow.
To me, despite the apparent increased resolution, the sound still seems airless or hooded somehow. Listening to Kathleen Battle's disc 'Bel Canto' is still a challenge for Sabre digital, to my ears. French horns still sound synthesised in comparison to my ladder DAC player. In particular, the harmonics of the horn sound as if they are constantly and unnaturally changing while the player reproduces the sound. It's as if it is constantly guessing at what the sound should be. It's a strange effect but instantly recognisable to me.
When listening to 'Wolf At The Door' , the opening track should give a sense of weight and presence. The JLTi 105D appears to do this very well. But when I played this back home, immediately afterward on my DAC83, it's apparent the the 1704 shows up the Sabre sound as ethereal by comparison.
Joe seems to suggest that the combination of his post-DAC filter and use of SAW clocks do a lot to reduce noise at critical junctures in the Oppo. I'm sure he's right. In my experience recently, reducing noise between my transport and DAC using an Audioquest Vodka cable had a similar effect on resolution. I'll probably get that and also the Lite Audio P100 power regenerator too, to enhance my 1704 experience further. But what I do know is that, as of now, I am still not convinced by the musical experience of the Oppo.
But let's be fair. The Oppo may need a better system than our club one, to shine. It was playing into a Krell S-300i and Image 414 speakers, across Well Tempered Argentum Alloy cables. Maybe it needs a better system than I can afford at home (see my profile). If I was going to choose an Oppo, I would find a way to invest in the JLTi mods (which now Lenehan Audio seems to like - though I'm sceptical as to whether that is for sonic of business reasons). But since one can still get 7014 DACs and a new round of custom built ladder DACs are becoming available, I know which I'd choose and what satisfies my ears and brain.
Big J
"... only a very few individuals understand as yet that personal salvation is a contradiction in terms."
Hi Geoff
Just want to set the record straight.
The original importer of Oppo was Ken Francis of Merlin Audio. He called me to tell me that he would be losing the agency to International Dynamics (InterDyn) in Melbourne and he was not surprised. After all, InterDyn is also the importer for Rotel. Shortly afterwards, Tony Wong from InterDyn also called me to let me know that they were taking on the national agency for Oppo, but that Ken would continue as a distributor, so relations were never strained - in fact it was all rather pre-expected because of InterDyn also having Rotel. Tony indeed is very well aware of the work we do on the Oppos and has praised it highly. Indeed Tony once suggested that he might even introduce me to guys from Rotel when they came to Australia.
Tony has since left InterDyn and is with Magenta Audio out of Adelaide. They bring in PS Audio products like the "DirectStream" DAC and also are resurrecting the Halcro brand. Tony is known by just about every HiFi dealer in the country and knows the industry better than anybody along with his old buddy Len Wallis. No better source.
I suspect Oppo themselves don't exactly want it widely known, but I don't consider it a negative and state it as a positive, both Oppo and Rotel stuff out of Rotel have proved to be very reliable products. Not seen a single failure of the latest series of Oppos, 103, 103D, 105 and 105D.
So I hope that helps.
Cheers, Joe
PS: If you get back in Sydney sometime, I would love to meet up - and tell you how VSE is going (went to Schaffhausen in August last year and met up with Hanni and Thomas). I could tell you some interesting things about Allen - 34 years we were friends and collaborators - and I was quite happy for him to be the front man. Did he ever talk about Rowan McCombe? :)
If you were mad, would you know it?
And the amount of time and thought that you exert in chasing down your digital gremlins. Having said that, I am very glad that I do not seem to mind the sound of the Sabre DACs. In fact, I find that most decent quality digital playback systems nowadays sound very, very good to me and I cannot imagine sweating the, what are to me, infinitely small details as you do. Nonetheless, I am glad that there are folks such as you so that I and others might benefit from your efforts.
Please understand that I am not criticizing you, merely critiquing. In my world, the sound of the room and the speakers in that room, as well as the quality of the source material are of MUCH greater importance. And until I manage to get those aspects right - and they most assuredly are not (yet), I will not spend any of my time or money trying to improve the quality of sound from my digital playback chain.
To each his own, I suppose...
-RW-
And since we so various and variable, it's easy to see why some things appeal to some and not to others. I like my present speaker/room combinations. And my music is what it is: some of it is well-recorded, some not. The performance is my guide. Good production is just a bonus.By the way, I strongly recommend having a listen to a JLTi 105D, if you get the chance. It is really good, and probably very good value too, for the sound it generates. I would never be so foolish as to suggest that since it didn't please me in the final analysis, it wouldn't suit others.
The other thing to mention - although we didn't see it demonstrated - is that just before the audio meeting, Joe Rasmussen took his 105D to a local dealer and they compared the video output too. Apparently the other improvements he makes to the player (which he didn't discuss) compete rather well with the Darbee Edition of the 105D. Perhaps this is related to the clocks.
Lastly, Joe also makes a version of the 105D with the Vacuum State Uberclock. This, however, costs a lot more...
Big J
"... only a very few individuals understand as yet that personal salvation is a contradiction in terms."
Edits: 03/27/15
Modders have been modding Oppos for years. You got your new fangled clocks, analog mods, digital mods, aftermarket fuses, or no fuse at all, linear power supply, WA Quantum Chips, my metal and cork to isolate the transformer and reduce that very toxic magnetic field, Audio Magic Pulse Gen ZX, pwb foils up the wazoo, 3M AB5100S RFI/EMI absorbing material on all semiconductor chips, Marigo dots, damping for the CD tray. Where does it all end? Lol
Perhaps some new clocks would improve my player (not an Oppo). Perhaps not. Seems the aftermarket clock industry has cooled off a little.
Still, the main event at Joe's presentation was his filter circuit and the effects were significant. Let's see where this leads.
Big J
"... only a very few individuals understand as yet that personal salvation is a contradiction in terms."
The aftermarket clock industry has probably cooled off because the original motivation for this tweak has now largely gone! In the 90s, stock designs were comparatively poor compared to the "modded" version partly due to the (often) poor clock stability, but also due to board layout. Additionally, when digital filters were only available in separate ICs they often degraded the bitclock (for example PMD-100 digital filter). There is now little benefit from retro-fitting a clock PCB into a "modern" CD player partly due to the fact that CDP product category is now very niche, and secondly because it is now comparatively well understood how to minimise jitter through various strategies such as distributed PLL, reclocking, SRC etc. Often grafting a second board with flying wires etc will often make things worse no matter how good the specification of the clock!
If using a separate DAC, a real benefit can still be had by using a separate master clock between the source and DAC (with the shortest possible connection and preferably AES balanced between clock and DAC). Then it *almost* doesn't matter what you have upstream.
I now use an Oppo 103 (completely stock) exclusively as a transport and fileserver between a Grimm CC1 and NAD M51. I wouldn't bother touching anything inside the Oppo as the gains would be insignificant.
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
With respect to the Oppo 103 you might be surprised what a little mu metal, AB2100S, Audio Magic Super Fuse, WA Quantum Chips, and damping the transport will do for transparency, detail and bass performance. Guess it all comes down to where one is satisfied with the sound. These are things I did myself AFTER I received my Modded Oppo 103. Otherwise, the Oppo 103, even the modded one, sounds rather generic and blah.
Good grief! There's a lot of tweaking going on there! What were the original mods on the unit before you actioned the extras?
I am very impressed with the 103 as a product - nicely made and a very good feature set.
You are quite right - everyone has different requirements, tastes and preferences. In my case, the Oppo is only for network audio streaming and audio disc playback (CD, and home produced DVD Audio) and my downstream components are such that the source is effectively irrelevant.
I don't use the Oppo as a video source and haven't listened to my Oppo via the analogue outputs as my reference playback system is entirely digital feeding up to the power amp...and so have no idea how "bad" it would sound and therefore no motivation to do any internal mods. Others may find that they need to tweak their Oppo to improve the sound. In my case, given the downstream configuration, tweaking the Oppo would achieve nothing that justified the effort and expense.
As an audio transport, the stock unit performs very well (suggesting solid engineering). Even the HDMI output (which as an interface is reknowned for high levels of jitter for audio) is not bad when feeding my M51 DAC directly. The M51 uses a 108MHz reference clock (which happens to conveniently be a standard pixel clock) so I wouldn't be surprised if the HDMI input is reclocked with respect to the internal reference of the M51 but still nowhere near as good as a Grimm CC1 or Apogee Big Ben! However, to listen to an SACD layer with an external DAC I have to use HDMI.
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
It was all planned, I never actually listened to the Oppo prior to mods by EVS. Then as time passed here were some interesting things that happened along the way, many things really. It's all a question where one chooses to get off. I'm more experimental perhaps than most. For me, it's more or less a never ending saga. Hopefully never ending. Everything is relative. I can certainly understand why someone would prefer not to touch the Oppo.
Edits: 04/02/15
There's some re-clocking going on in my Lite arrangement but, you never know. Perhaps a better clock would improve things. That said, the Grimm is a bit 'spendy' for me. Glad you like it, though.
Big J
"... only a very few individuals understand as yet that personal salvation is a contradiction in terms."
I needed the Grimm primarily for my digital recordings. However, I started off with an Apogee Big Ben which also works well as a reclocking digital hub since you can convert between formats (eg. optical to AES). The Grimm is certainly discernibly better. However, it certainly doesn't justify the price difference if the primary aim is "reclocking" for the sake of it.
Most DACs these days do internal reclocking of one sort or another, so I certainly wouldn't advocate a Big Ben as an essential component in your case. However, if you are stuck with an optical output from a Network Streamer for example, the Big Ben will transform it into something sounding more like a reference source when you feed the AES output to your reference DAC!
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
I have paraphrased what you originally wrote and made that the subject line. Sorry for taking the liberty. You said:
I admired the efforts made by Oppo on the original 105D (which I found out is actually manufactured by Rotel under special license).
Are you sure about that?
When I tried to find some references to that through Google, I did read that Oppo used a Rotel transformer in the 95 but now manufacture the transformer in house. That was all I could find linking these two firms.
I cannot find any references to support that statement.
Can you tell me how you know this?
Regards,
Geoff
I have always felt that many of these companies work "behind the scenes" if you will, w/ one another.
Am I sure about that? No, not at all. Not least because I've never seen that anywhere either.
But it's what Joe Rasmussen told about 30 of us at the event last night at a public meeting. I assume he knows what he is talking about as he works with Oppo. He, of course, could be mistaken, but I doubt it.
Joe went on to say that Rotel will never release a version of the player themselves, as part of the agreement. So in a sense, this could be seen as a Rotel/Oppo player. Other companies (I think he mentioned Cambridge Audio) have used/are using/are about to use some of the technology in the basic Oppo player, but I have no idea what that means.
I sense that one may see more versions of this post-DAC filter and twin-clock combination appearing in the next generation of Sabre players from boutique audio houses. But that's just a guess of mine.
Big J
"... only a very few individuals understand as yet that personal salvation is a contradiction in terms."
That is quite fascinating.
I don't know Joe, but I did meet the late Allen Wright on a number of occasions over 30 years. He built a pre-amp for me. Allen and Joe collaborated for a number of years. (RIP Allen - you are greatly missed).
Regards,
Geoff
I noticed that the Oppo makes a clear distinction between the sound of CDs and SACDs, with the latter proving more enjoyable and resolute. But I noticed that it made my CDs sound worse than at home. On my system, the sound I get from CDs is more in keeping with the way the 105D reproduces an SACD. Perhaps not the same, but the difference is not significant to me (even if it may sound substantial to others).
Well recorded CDs, on my system, sound brilliant.
Big J
"... only a very few individuals understand as yet that personal salvation is a contradiction in terms."
Thanks for your insight. I have a vacuum state SACD player and have been looking at the oppo. If joe can't make it sound good, than there is a problem. What players use the DAC chip you mentioned? I did a google search but could find nothing.
Thanks
Do you mean the Sabre or the 1704?
Big J
"... only a very few individuals understand as yet that personal salvation is a contradiction in terms."
The 7014 chips you mentioned earlier. Thanks
Well I know of no SACD or DSD players that use the 1704, but plenty of high and boutique players tht use it. A search on here will reveal several.
The chip was/is manufactured by Burr Brown (BB) or Texas Instruments (TI). The best measuring examples are the 'K' versions. My own player uses four of the PCM 1704-K chips. Audio-GD have used them a lot recently. Wadia was known for using them quite a bit, and many others.
Before the Metrum, MSB, TotalDac and Schiit's of this world re-invested in R2R technology, the 1704 was considered second only to designs produced by Ultra Analog for high end digital audio reproduction, that I can recall. Another flavour of audio greatness can be had in Philips' own TDA 1541A, of which you are probably aware. Implementation requires care. Done right, can be very satisfying.
Big J
"... only a very few individuals understand as yet that personal salvation is a contradiction in terms."
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: