Official OPPO BDP-95 Owner's Thread - Page 165

The Sony SCD-XA5400ES will sonically better the Krell CD any day and can now be had for less than 1,000.00. I would never say that people cannot afford such gear as most folks don't care enough about audio to spend high dollar for such a non essential, depreciating asset. In fact, most audiophiles, including me, may have more dollars than sense.

Blasphemy . Seriously though, I think a lot of people would be VERY surprised with the results of comparisons if they didn't know which product they were listening to at any given time until after the comparisons were made. I'm not going to suggest that the Oppo would win the comparison every time, but some people get all caught up in the brand name and how much money something costs and lose the ability to make a fair comparison in the process.

Maybe Oppo should just raise the price of the 95 to $8,000 and be done with it .

Tastefully funny comment. The sad thing is that most folks wouldn't know a bargain if it slapped them in the face.

I think that sometimes you hear a difference but can't really say that one is better than the other....only that they're different.

You're a tenacious guy. Personally, I'm glad you're around to pump money into our ailing economy. As to your observation, for sure, Kal has done "direct comparisons".


In fact he's has a published review on the AV888. Kal also seems to have a level of respect and creditability with his observations and reviews. I've listened and compared too, but I don't have Kal's creditability.

I'm not picking a fight, and the AV888 is a nice piece of kit. But, your blanket statement of something costing more means it's better is just absurd hogwash.

One of the things you're missing is that Oppo is fundamentally an internet direct company. Oppo's parent company, BBK, is the manufacturer and an OEM for companies like Denon, Panasonic, and others. In other words, a very large company. This business model allows Oppo to bring a high quality product at a lower price point by removing layers of distribution, dealer support, and sales cost. If you sold the Oppo machine through the same distribution model a company like Arcam uses, you would easily double the cost or more.

Lexicon put a new face plate on an Oppo BDP-83 and marked it up 700%. Surely that made a difference and made it better?

http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/t...blu-ray-player

It's clear however, that you practice what you preach as you have indicated that you're an owner of an Oppo BDP-95 with its ESS Sabre ES9018 DAC's. Why else would you invest the additional money for the BDP-95 over the BDP-93 (without the Saber DAC's) using it with your AV888 if you weren't a high price is better driven consumer?

The 4/2Vs are variable from 0 to 4/2Vs. A -10dB drop is about 0.316V and is fixed.

I can confirm no problems with the Netflix sacd issue, all is well.

I have posted this before but I'll say it again, I sold my Marantz sa11s1 after many weeks of critical listening and kept the Oppo and I was actually biased in favor of the Marantz.

I bought the Oppo unit because I didn't want to pay $3,000 or more for a new pre-pro while taking advantage of my Arcam receiver's analog inputs. The purpose of my purchase was to use this unit solely as a movie machine. just for fun I went ahead and made some comparisons between the marantz and the Oppo in pure analog stereo, with sacd I could not make up my mind on which unit sounded better, on cd playback, the Oppo slowly won me over, and with time I could not use the Marantz to play cds any more, the Oppo was simply better.

Now the Marantz is gone and that is a desicion that I wouldn't have made litely. the Oppo surprised me with its musicality and I have been listening to my old cds all over again. it's funny that the Oppo's wall paper is a Phone catridge while playing cd.

I don't have a blu ray player and if I want to get one it's Oppo. Now it's between 95 and 93. I also like fine audio.

On the audio part of BDP-95, does the player get very hot? My understanding is the BDP-95 (I know it has optical and digital outputs. I only want to discuss analog output here) only outputs analog signals which have to be input into a dedicated amplifier which output into speakers. It's not supposed to use speakers directly on the output of BDP-95. I have an Onkyo entry level receiver which is hot when played. I am evaluating between the two. I like Video/Audio experience but only play with reasonable $$$.

Again, do you guys expect Oppo will update these players in a couple of years? Given the advance of technologies it's almost inevitable. However, seeing what the BDP-95 already has, it's hard to see any major updates. Who knows, a few years back BDP-93/95 was unheard.

I havent found these units to be bad for heat at all. In my setup I have a 2-shelf open shelving unit with my amps on the bottom shelf and the oppo/pre-amp on the top shelf. My HD cable box is sitting on top of the OPPO with the Plasma TV mounted on the wall about 12" behind the units and 6" up. I have not found the OPPO to get overly warm in this situation at all. While this is just a temporary setup it has been this way for a couple months now and the fan hasn't been loud enough to be a distraction either.

Heat is not an issue if placed in a suitable location (natural airflow is good). The 93 is a very good player, reasonably priced but does not equal the 95's analogue out. Several comparisons out there. If you don't have or don't think you will have the associated components to resolve and hear the difference, the 93 is the way to go if you ask me. With both, you will need some kind of external amplification.

Interesting find...may help those on the fence between the 93/95. Outlaw Audio's heavily delayed/anticipated 978 pre/pro is being released with ESS Sabre DAC, with full Audissey as well. Expected end of year. This could be a great match with the 93...put the extra $500 toward the pre/pro!

My thoughts exactly.

Bill

Anyone know what I should ask for my Denon 5900 now that I have a BDP 95? Thanks in advance.

What a great product the Oppo is!

Thanks for this. Support also confirmed: "Each step in the volume is a 2dB alteration to the signal...[and in doing so] the reduction in the voltage is not linear, it is logarithmic..Realistically, setting the player to "50" should be around .3V"

Let me know when you find out as I have a 5900 also (with SDI) that I'd like to get rid of.

I still like the sonic traits of the Sony SCD-XA5400ES and the BDP-S5000ES for music and movies over the Oppo BDP-95. Its not that Oppo is bad, its just too warm for my system. I think I will try it in my bedroom where my Infinity Speakers have those EMIT tweeters that may benefit from the warm sound of the Oppo. I'm missing that last octave of the high frequencies that I have become accustomed to with the Sonys. Make no mistake about it, high end processors have nothing to worry about.

gbaby,

I've been following your last few posts and I knew you would eventually come back to the Sony's. As you've stated you have become accustomed to the sound characteristics of the Sony's.

I own both the BDP-95 and the Sony BDP-S5000ES and I only use the Sony occasionally for blu-ray as a change of pace. All things musical go through the Oppo as I do not care for the sound characteristics of the Sony, but again this is just my preference.

I have never heard a Sony SCD-XA5400ES, but have heard great things about it. Also, high end processors have nothing to worry about with the BDP-S5000ES also.

Hopefully, the Oppo will work out in your bedroom, but if not you still have to capable Sony's.

Don't you just love this hobby.

Be patient, your 95's true form still needs time. Let it burn in and open up

Not true.

I appreciate your comments. For blu-ray, the Sony BDP-S5000ES seems to have more slam with the mid and higher frequencies having that relaxed airy presentation that I am missing with the Oppo. The Oppo gives me sound without emotions. Its very difficult for me to articulate. Now the BDP-S5000ES is not good for music which is why I like the Sony XA-5400ES for that purpose. For music, I think the Oppo may be handicaped by its limited frequency repsonse of 20 to 20Hz +/- 3db whereas the Sony XA-5400ES is about 10 the 50Hz +/- 3 db. Now the Oppo has a better picture than the S5000ES, but sound, I still like the Sony.

No player, per se, can connect directly to speakers. An amplifier of some sort is always required.

I'm trying.

Most people articulate this as being an "analytical sound". The holy grail of high quality audio gear is to impart *nothing* to the audio. The BDP-95 has been shown to accomplish this on a variety of bench testing gear. What most folks will describe as "warmth" in audio is actually distortion and/or noise. The 95 has virtually no measurable noise or distortion.

You may prefer the sound with a bit more distortion and/or noise, and you would not be alone in this as many people do. But more often you will tend to prefer the sound that you're used to hearing. Give the 95 a few weeks and listen to a broad range of familiar material. You may find yourself hearing details that you have not heard before, and learning to like it.

I got my 95 on Thursday and I have been running several SACD's 24 hours a day since then.

I have read here that some people do not believe that electronics have to "break in", but after playing the same music, on the same system, with about the same warmup time for the tube pre-amp and power amp's, I can clearly hear an improvement in the overall sound.

Of course, YMMV.

Me too, finally picked my 95 up this week and running some SACD's thru it. Very nice player so far, love everything about. I'm still learning about it but I love the style, functionality, and GUI interface. Oh, and the firmware update over internet is awesome. Maybe I'll have questions later , i have kept up with this thread from the beginning but until you actually have a 95 player to touch and try things on sometimes it was a bit tough to understand what troubles people were experiencing. So, anyhow, thanks for all the information in this thread, you guys have done a super job!

On the question of burn in, is there any reason you can't play a sacd with the repeat setting so that it'll get the burn in time without you actually having it go through the rest of your system? That way, you can having it run for several hours while your system is otherwise off or while you're watching something else. Seems that it would be doable because all the circuits would be working whether or not its going into your other components.

Yup, that is what I am doing; the player is on constant repeat. I only turn the rest of the system on when I want to listen.

To truly nit pick, you can connect direct to the player, but you just can't hear anything.