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In Reply to: RE: At least you can posted by G Squared on March 12, 2014 at 14:12:17
Yes, I intend to listen to my DAC and then switch back to the Oppo after a week of break-in with pink noise, music, and movies. I will be listening to the music and movies via the Oppo's digital output into my Eximus DP1 DAC. If the Oppo sounds dull and unemotional when I switch back in a week or so, then perhaps it does not have a decent analog output stage. I will test both the balanced and unbalanced stereo outputs.
I honestly expected the Oppo to sound basically as good as my DAC and my Alesis Masterlink. The Alesis Masterlink was not an overly expensive component, costing only $800 in 2004, but it sounds perfect to me. By perfect, I mean that when I copy a vinyl LP at 24/96, the digital copy sounds identical to the LP when played back through either the Masterlink's DAC or from the Masterlink's digital output through my Eximus DP1 DAC. There might be minimal differences, but for all practical purposes, digital copies of vinyl sound identical to vinyl as far as I can tell. Therefore, I expected the Oppo to sound basically as good as my Masterlink and my Eximus DP1 DAC. I was very surprised that it sounded rather dull, blurry and unemotional instead of detailed and transparent. I actually wondered whether Oppo tried to give it a tube-like sound quality instead of an accurate sound quality.
Best regards,
John Elison
Follow Ups:
"I was very surprised that it sounded rather dull, blurry and unemotional instead of detailed and transparent. I actually wondered whether Oppo tried to give it a tube-like sound quality instead of an accurate sound quality."
I don't know about the emotional part, but if it sounds dull and blurry instead of detailed and transparant even before being broken in, there is something VERY wrong going on in your system. That description differs from virtually every review of it. It also differs from the consensus descriptions of users in its very extensive thread on the AVS Forum which I followed many months ago. Somewhere I have described it as "Avery Fisher Hall rather than Carnegie Hall." It should give you what's on the disk, warts and all.
Breaking it in mellows it, not the other way around.
Mel
Well, if there is something wrong with it, I'll return it. Perhaps the words "dull" and "blurry" are a bit too strong. It sounds soft. Bass is not tight and clean. The highs seem to surpress detail. It doesn't sound as transparent as my Alesis masterlink and my Eximus DP1 DAC. If it continues to sound this way after a break-in period, I plan to send it back.
Best regards,
John Elison
I bought a BDP-105 a little more than a year ago and had the same experience. I expected much better siound than I was hearing. After some more listening and comparisons with other players I had around the house I determined that I had a defective unit. Crutchfield sent a replacement right aware and wow, what a difference the new player made. The Oppo is very detailed and has solid deep low end and very detailed highs. My original player seemed to have one channel wired out of phase. Before giving up on the player ask for a replacement. It sounds like your player has an issue of some sort. All the reviews, and I can confirm this, suggest the player sounds just about the opposite of what you describe.
If your references are analog and a NOS DAC, then I would not expect others to compete with that.
Are you saying the reason the Oppo BDP-105 sounds different is because of its DAC rather than its analog output stage?
As I gain more experience, more evidence points me in that direction.
I doubt it will improve with break-in. Oh, well.
John,
I found my year old post on Audiogon. This is what I wrote:
"I find it to be sensational. It replaced a very fine Lavry fed by a good Panasonic CD player. Soundstages beautifully and with the right material extends easily past the speakers. Great sense of depth. Terrific dynamics and strong and detailed bass. Very revealing, so watch out for poorly engineered disks. Needs tons of break-in. It encourages me to buy SACDs, including the old RCAs which are wonderful and inexpensive. It is Avery Fischer Hall rather than Carnegie, so system matching matters. For me it makes digital much more competitive with my vinyl. Among the joys is putting youtube videos up wirelessly on the screen and enjoying many performances with excellent video and audio that are available. They're getting better all the time. Much more enjoyable than watching on the computer. I should add that I'm only using two channels of it. And did I mention that it needs tons of break-in."
Of course, in different systems and to different ears YMMV.
And then there are the Bluray disks and downloads and on and on.
In fact I found it so good that I was almost tempted to give up on analog. But then I got a ringweight (everyone should have one of these), and it is now back and forth for me. I'll never have nearly as many silver disks as I have lps.
Best,
Mel
> Needs tons of break-in.
I am currently in the break-in phase. I'll let you know how it sounds after a good 200-hours or more of break-in.
Thanks,
John Elison
Will you or won't you, this is really getting exciting! ;)
A lot is riding on this decision, many egos could be bruised and sales might suffer, so let's not make a hasty call here....
John, pls put these guys out of their miseries so we can go back to listening to the music. LOL
Doug
PS; playing some Patty Barber Cafe Blue on MFSL SACD in the next room, I swear she's just right around the corner. So, so good!
As Mel notes, something is so wrong with your Oppo 105 that even extended break-in time is very unlikely to bring it to acceptable standards.. The unit simply does not sound the way you describe it, despite a few posts here to the contrary.
I do have to say that the word "transparency" has me bothered a little. I recognize that "transparent" is the adjective du jour in many audio circles but to me (after hearing systems lauded as "transparent" at shows and elsewhere), it brings to mind words like "threadbare," "bleached" and "uninvolving." I'm sure you don't think of it that way, and that's probably a minority view. But in any event the 105 is, in my system, full-bodied, dynamic, very open, and quite sufficiently detailed without being "ruthlessly revealing." Just so you know where i'm coming from. And that's the stock unit. The ModWright version is a whole other story.
Why not simply get another one in for a side by side evaluation? If it, too, sounds as you describe, then you simply do not like the Oppo sound. BFD. However, if it sounds markedly better, you then know that your original unit was faulty.
Even Oppo, with their SOTA engineering and production facilities, make a bad unit once in a while...
-RW-
I'd love to compare mine to another, but I don't think it's possible without actually buying another. Mine might be improving, too. I listened last night through its unbalanced analog outputs and it seemed to sound better than I remembered. It certainly is a nice Blu-Ray/DVD/Netflix player for video, though.
Best regards
John Elison
Hi john,Could I suggest you call the boys, i.e., customer service at Oppo and describe what you are hearing so they might have an idea if your unit is either defective or just not to your liking?
In any event, they might offer to swap out a unit, gratis, and have you return the old back just for evaluation.
I have found them extremely helpful and accommodating when I had to call them for a few suggestions re my player.
Regards,
Bill
Edits: 03/14/14 03/14/14
I also found this particular review to be spot on, as I hear it in my system as well.
http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/oppo_bdp105_e.html
Hi, I am usually lurking over at the vinyl asylum where I occasionally post, or in the PC asylum where I have not posted.
I bought the Oppo 105 last fall and I am always interested in John's posts so I have been following this thread with great interest.
I reread the TNT review and was curious about benefit of covering the coax output if it is not being used -- from the review:
"I also experimented with a terminator for the coaxial digital output. This likes to see a 75ohm load, and can sometimes be noisy when left open. Since it is located directly under the audiophile stereo board the effect could be bigger than usual. I tried this and indeed could hear a very slight improvement in the sound. I left it in for the duration of the review."
Have others tried this? Results? What sort of terminator would do?
Thanks, Stephanie
Your idea of transparency is wrong. Think of it like this:
Suppose you are looking out a plate glass window onto a view of the countryside. If the window is truly transparent, what you see through the window will be identical to what you see when the window is removed.
Transparency and accuracy go together. I judge a digital components transparency with the sound of vinyl. My Alesis Masterlink is truly transparent in that I can make a 24/96 digital copy of a vinyl record and the digital copy will sound just like the record when played back through the Masterlink. Furthermore, when I transfer the digital file to my hard drive and play it through my DAC, it also sounds just like the vinyl record. However, when I play that same file with the Oppo, it sounds different than the vinyl record.
The Oppo has a definite sonic signature that none of my other digital components posses. Perhaps I've been blessed, but I have owned accurate and transparent digital recorders and players for the past 20-years. Perhaps you remember when Mike Lavigne challenged me in June 2007 to prove to him that I could make a 16/44 Redbook CD-R that sounded like vinyl. Mike lost his own challenge when he failed to identify the CD-R recording from a vinyl record being played on his $75,000 Rockport Sirius III turntable.
I really don't think there is anything wrong with my Oppo BDP-105D other than the fact that Oppo gave it a definite sonic signature rather than making it accurate and transparent. On the other hand, you must have thought there was something very seriously wrong with your Oppo to spend twice it price on modifications to its power supply and analog output stage. Actually, I was hoping that the Oppo would be accurate and that you wanted it to be colored, and that was the reason for spending all that money. However, that doesn't seem to be the case with my Oppo. It is already colored more than I prefer.
Since I have it setup and running in my system, I will keep it for another couple of weeks of break-in before making a final decision on whether to send it back. We'll see how it goes.
Best regards,
John Elison
We'll have to agree to differ on the subjects of "transparency" and "accuracy."
As to why I modded the 105, I've explained it elsewhere. But here it is. I have 150+ SACDs and thousands of CDs. I've had, prior to the 105, five players that would handle SACDs, topped by the $3K Sony XA-777ES. None of them sounded remotely close to my Raysonic 128 ... on CDs. On SACDs, the Raysonic -- playing the CD layer when there was one -- usually sounded as good or better than any of the SACD players
What I was looking for was one player that would do it all -- play CDs at least as well as the Raysonic and play SACDs better than anything I had heard to date. If the stock 105 hadn't done that, I wouldn't have kept it. It passed both tests. It sounded so good that I wanted to see how much better I could make it. Thus the ModWright modifications. And NOS Sylvania 6SN7s (arriving tomorrow). And a NOS 5R4GYS rectifier tube from Upscale Audio (arrived yesterday). And topflight power cords and interconnects (already owned). And full attention to damping and decoupling (maple platforms, brass cones, cork/rubber things, also already owned).
With all this, I still don't have as much new money in it as the original flagship Sony and Marantz SACD players, which the modded Oppo already pretty much leaves in the dust, IMO. Whether you keep it or not, your 105 will never sound like mine. But it should sound damn good. I still recommend that you send it back, because you have taken such a strong and repeated stand relative to the "inadequacies" you perceive, and I think you'd be much happier with something else. But obviously, your call.
> We'll have to agree to differ on the subjects of "transparency" and "accuracy."
What are the terms that you use to describe a component that imparts no sonic signature whatsoever? Whatever terms you use to describe that concept, please feel free to insert those terms into all my previous posts in place of the words "transparency" and "accuracy." This will alleviate the need for me to rewrite everything I've already written so that you might understand its intended meaning. LOL! Unbelievable!
Yes, I now understand completely why you modified your Oppo BDP-105 -- you didn't like the way it sounded. Wow!
Thanks,
John Elison
Happy listening.
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