Official OPPO BDP-83 Owner's Thread [technical talk only] - Page 1287

As far as the 83 goes, if I am looking to budget price into an OPPO should I find a cheap 83? Or should I look at a 93 for around $400 or just go for the 103? I know they all are fairly equal for video which is mostly what it would be used for. I am going to start collecting some SACD and DVD-A as well... never been into that aspect of music before.

I found the oppo 93 to be better for me a least. i does depend if you want 3d & streaming? because the 83 cannt do streaming or 3d.

Jacob

I will probably just go higher because I may eventually do 3d or streaming. Thank you.

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That's a pretty typical value, ($275), eBay is loaded with them these days. If you want the best in DVD scaling, the BDP-83 is a sure bet and will always be supported.

Keep in mind that the Oppo 103 honours Cinavia in principle (if not in practice yet for all formats), in case that is important to your playback of your material.

It depends a lot also on whether the play is RF modded or not.

That was my thought until I unplugged the hdmi cable and sound improved in my opinion. If source is analog, cannot grasp how an analog signal is PCM. So I am guessing the oppo is converting from 96/24 with its dac to analog outputs. So why does PCM display in oppo even when hdmi audio set to off. Obviously I am listening to analog but something not right to my ears when PCM illuminated. What am I missing?
Edited by wadeh911 - 2/8/13 at 6:38pm

The only analogue sources are vinyl records and audio tape: everything else is stored as a digital representation of the audio. This digital representation generally must be converted to analogue at some point via a DAC to drive audio transducers, but it may require decoding from some other format to PCM first.

The only question is which device has the better sounding DAC and associated circuits.

IIRC, the Oppo has settings in the setup menu to downsample in order to limit output for devices that may not be able to handle it. Perhaps you have the limit set to 48kHz. This probably doesn't apply for analogue outputs, so perhaps that is why you notice a difference.

I agree... Settings, settings, settings! The Oppo has no right sounding better than the SSP (unless Classe royally screwed up).
PCM will be lit unless you are bitstreaming DSD which is in the Oppo setup.
Also are you going pure analog in the Classe or redigitizing? If the latter then you are hearing both Dacs

It only affects the S/PDIF output.
No danger of bitstreaming DSD into the SSP. It will not allow it.
He mentioned using the 5.1 analog input, so it can only be analog passthrough.

Right, so PCM will always be lit on the Oppo in this system.

The Classe can't digitize 5.1 analog input?
Edited by AVfile - 2/9/13 at 9:43am

The 83 has an SACD audio output setting that can be set to either DSD or PCM. I set mine to output DSD and I've never seen "PCM" lit up on my Oppo.

My setup, however, is a little different from wadeh911's. I connect the Oppo's dedicated stereo outs to an analog preamp (for 2chnl SACD), along with HDMI to an AVR (used strictly as a pre/pro) for multichannel SACD. My AVR can accept a DSD bitstream from the Oppo, so there is no PCM conversion in the chain. Again, I've never seen "PCM" lit up on my Oppo.

Correct -- as long as the SSP-800's HDMI is involved.
No. Only the stereo inputs.

Appreciate the many comments to my question. Seems like we concur that the Oppo display of PCM should have no affect on its analog out by RCA jacks. My Oppo setup limit is 192khz. Once I changed SSP-800 setup for this source to No Video, the PCM is no longer illuminated in the Oppo. I did notice an increased output sound level when PCM disappeared from display. Will go back and try to level match and recompare what I am hearing.

Like Roger says, Classe can't handle DSD so that setup option in the Oppo is turned off to save the possible Bitstream>DSD>PCM>DAC>Analog out.

This whole problem was brought to my attention from my brother in law, who is a writer/reviewer for Audioholics when he came down for the Super Bowl. Until then I was listening blissfully. Two hours later and changing SSP800 source setup, no more PCM in the Oppo display. And was listening blissfully again or so I thought.

We all are nuts about these thing as you can see.

With my source set to bypass, it is my opinion I am going pure analog in the Classe. Also set up another source set to discrete (with 2 channel stereo RCA inputs) as audio input. Again it is my opinion I am going pure analog in the Classe when passing via the discrete processing using the PCM output of the oppo via my HDMI. Do you concur?

What does "discrete processing" mean? Also mentioned both stereo RCA and PCM via HDMI. Very confusing because there's nothing analog about the latter.

Are you even using the bass management and time alignment (speaker distances) in the source players (Oppo)? Here the smallest adjustment could make a huge difference in the sound, also depending on room acoustics, speaker position and bass extension, and seating position as you must be aware.

Hopefully these settings only apply to the analog outputs, as you want them only when using analog direct and you use the Classe's settings when going digital (or redigitizing the stereo RCA inputs). I've never used my 83's bass management or analog side for that matter so I don't know.
Edited by AVfile - 2/11/13 at 10:50pm

This is a good thing, I think. Looks like the Oppo is smart enough to skip DSD->PCM conversion when the HDMI interface is shut down thereby ignoring the SACD DSD/PCM setting in the menu. If you truly prefer the sound of the Oppo's DACs and bass management to the Classe's then this is the right way to go.

Volume difference is not surprising as my GUESS is you are simply hearing the difference between native DSD decoding and PCM transcoding in the Oppo. Also there is often confusion regarding the LFE channel level (if present) during SACD mastering and playback. Some discs contain a 5 or 10 dB error, and some players also introduce a similar error.

Just remember that the Oppo's analog outputs cannot provide bass management unless it is internally converting DSD to PCM. There is no bass management for DSD directly.

It's not really an error, but designed by purpose to pass the LFE signal at a manageable level. It's understood that the discrepancy will then be compensated for at the AVR, once the signal has been passed.

Yes, good point, and I just saw Bob's post on the same topic in the BDP-95 thread:

"Note that if you play an SACD disc with DSD-Direct-to-Analog Conversion in effect, then no audio processing is possible -- including distance adjustments. Use SACD Output PCM instead."

There was another guy there that said he preferred the sound of NO digital processing even without correct speaker distances on certain SACDs, which I find hard to believe!

I think you are talking about a different issue -- that LFE is usually printed at -10 dB to allow for an extra 10 dB headroom. What AVFile is referring to is that there was a camp who thought 5.1 music should be mastered with the LFE at 0 dB instead of -10 dB like everything else. It has caused a lot of trouble for zero benefit.
You might be surprised how little the distance settings affect the perceived result on a lot of content. I learned this the hard way -- the distance settings in the SSP-800 worked in reverse for the first 2 years until someone said something.

That's backwards. The OPPO players default to PCM. You will only get DSD if you ask for it and if everything in your configuration allows it. If you have SACD Output PCM set, you will only ever get PCM.

When DSD actually does engage, then no audio processing is possible (the DSD goes directly to the Analog conversion in the DACs, bypassing any possible processing). So all speakers are treated as "Large" (no crossover processing), channels are lost if some speakers don't exist (no down mix processing), all speakers are treated as equidistant (no time alignment for distance adjustment), and individual speaker volume trims go away. Using DSD is not for the faint of heart.
--Bob

SACD calls for LFE to be recorded at matched levels to the mains -- which of course is nuts (thank you, the marketing department of Sony Corporation) as the whole POINT of having a separate LFE channel is to record bass that's too loud to go into the main speaker channels.

This resulted in massive confusion for people playing anything other than SACD discs, since of course every other format has LFE recorded at -10dB down from the mains (to provide the headroom for its intended purpose -- recording LOUD bass).

So MUCH confusion that some studios "helpfully" started producing SACD discs out of spec -- i.e., with their LFE recorded -10dB down to match every other format.

The OPPO players automatically lower SACD LFE by -10dB so that the user doesn't need to alter the Sub volume trim every time he sticks in an SACD disc. Of course if you have one of those "helpful" SACD discs, that's going to result in weak bass.

Note that many studios have avoided the whole issue by recognizing that the SACD LFE spec is screwed up to begin with, so they don't PUT any LFE content on the disc. They put all the bass into the mains speaker channels.

I recommend you check your SACD bass levels using tracks 43-48 of "Stay in Tune with PentaTone", SACD. But CAUTION, the LFE test track in that set (track 48) appears to be recorded about +4dB hot -- probably due to its frequency range.
--Bob

Also keep in mind that if you send HDMI DSD to a sound processor, then it is the sound processor that gets to decide what to do with it. In many cases you will need to make a special setting choice in the sound processor to engage DSD-Direct-to-Analog conversion, as doing that ALSO means that all audio processing in the sound processor gets disabled (just as happens in the OPPO). If you DON'T make that setting choice in the surround processor then it -- the sound processor -- will just convert the DSD to LPCM as its first step on input! Which of course means you might as well have just sent LPCM from the OPPO anyway.

Again, you will also need to verify your bass levels using, e.g., that PentaTone disc to see what your surround processor does with it.
--Bob

Ah ! yup, was focusing on technical, not religious differences. You are right.

My oppo 105 arrives Wednesday and looks like my 83SE is sold. The 83SE was a great player for me but I have finally found a stable DLNA server application in Jriver and a stable iPad DLNA application Jremote to push my music choices from the comfort of my sweet seat surrounded by my B&W 803 diamonds. Nice to see some of you regulars are also following the 83 DLNA/UPnP topic that needs to be renamed to the oppo DLNA/UPnP thread. Wish me luck with my 105. I can hardly wait for Wednesday night!

You must not have a monitor (TV ) hooked up to it. If I have my LCD connected, all I get out of it is "decoded" PCM

+1 on that, I really don't think you can get straight decoded DSD out of the analogs. I am a little disappointed on the SACD performance of the Oppo's. Everything else is AWESOME

"I am a little disappointed on the SACD performance of the Oppo's."

1st one I've read to say that in 5 years.

Does the 83 support any lossless files on USB or just mp3? I tried some wav files and it shows the folders on screen but no tunes.