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In Reply to: You really should give the Oppo a try ... posted by Christine Tham on January 18, 2007 at 18:59:42:
I have not dabbled in SACD but I do have some hybrid disks. Is the Oppo a good player to let me hear the differences between SACD and CD to tell me if is worth investing more?
Follow Ups:
Depends, I suspect the Oppo is probably not revealing enough to showcase differences between SACD 2ch and CD - you will probably notice some benefit of SACD, but it won't be night and day (the Oppo converts SACD to PCM 88.2/24 so it's not "pure")But it does play multi-channel SACD and DVD-Audio quite well, and you'll certainly notice the difference between stereo and 5.1.
What sort of system do you have? And what kind of music are you interested in?
I have Spendor 2/3, Rel Subwoofer driven by Theta Casanova Pre-Pro to Marantz MA700 monoblocks. Looking at upgrading to either a 2 channel pramp with HT bypass to isolate music from HT. Or considering a Pre-Pro upgrade or multi channel pre-amp. That is why I decided to explore SACD. I have a motorized screen that drops down for movies. I love listening to DVD surround concerts. The rear ambience makes it so enveloping and more "real". I don't like the surround modes on the Theta for music because they make the front channels harsh sounding. I have not played around with the newer surround formats to see what they do with music. It would be nice if the front channels were untouched and just rear ambience put in the back. I listen to rock/pop, adult contemporary and salsa music. No classical so that is why I have reservations about jumping on the SACD bandwagon.
At US$149, it's about the price of ten CDs and you will really enjoy the video quality for DVD Videos even if you end up not liking the surround formats.There are some rock/pop and contemporary titles worth checking out in multi-channel on SACD and DVD Audio.
On SACD, I would recommend James Taylor's Hourglass, Celine Dion's "All The Way ...", Roxy Music Avalon, Chris Botti's Night Sessions, Mike Oldfields Tubular Bells, the Moody Blues, Diana Krall, Michael McDonald, as some good examples you can check out. If you want to listen to 2ch only, there's Peter Gabriel, Police, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, etc.
On DVD-Audio, most of the titles from Warner are m-ch and most of them are pretty good.
The good thing about the Oppo is that whilst it may not be the ultimate in sound quality (but then, nothing is) it's quite pleasant to listen to.
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