Official OPPO BDP-105 Owner's Thread - Page 42

Thanks Bill. I will rename them and do so on all the files I download from that source.
Cathy

The reason for the attenuation is so that LOUD signals can be carried without clipping the input at the other end of the cable. If you raise the sub volume trim in the player you risk running afoul of that. Whether it will ACTUALLY be a problem depends on the headroom of the input at the other end of the cable -- i.e., the max voltage it can accept before clipping.

That's why the Rule of Thumb is to provide all of the boost external to the player. In the case of direct connection to the line level input of your Subwoofer, that would mean raising the volume knob on the Subwoofer.

If you run the Analog Subwoofer signal through an AVR -- even when set to Analog direct pass-through -- you will likely find that the AVR is providing +10dB of boost already by default. Some AVRs (Denon for example) have a setting to change that to +15dB of boost. In any case, if the AVR is already providing some of the boost then you need less increase in the volume knob on the Subwoofer itself.

You can check your levels by using the 5.1 LPCM test track from AIX Audio Calibration Blu-ray and an SPL meter. If you are running a true 2.1 system, you will need to temporarily change Center and the Side Surrounds to Large in the OPPO to keep them from being down-mixed during the test. It does not matter that nothing is cabled to those outputs. So you would have Sub ON, LF/RF Small, and Center/LS/RS Large and then check the levels for just LF/RF and Sub. If the levels are correct for that 5.1 test, then the OPPO will also insure they remain correct when you play 2.0 content and thus only bass steered from LF/RF is going out on the Sub output.

Set main Volume on the OPPO so that LF/RF produce 75dB SPL (for example), and then, leaving that OPPO volume unchanged, adjust the volume knob on the sub until it too achieves 75dB SPL. Repeat several times until there is no longer need to change the Sub's volume knob as the sub volume setting also affects a portion of the LF/RF output.
--Bob

Wow! Now it looks like the beast actually plays OGG vorbis audio in DMR mode! The mistake was on the server: wrong mime-type in configuration. I have fixed it (actually FLAC was wrong as well in the Serviio DLNA server configuration, that is how I noticed; in Twonky it is only the OGG mime-type) and it plays now. I have all transcoding turned off, so it must be the Oppo playing ths OGGs directly, I suppose.

Oppo BDP 105 initial unboxing

So, I picked up my BDP 105 a week ago Thursday and installed it in my system a week ago today. When unboxing this player, it sort of reminded my of my Cambridge Audio 840C unboxing. Nice cover, decent cords included, and nice robust packaging. I’ve never had another Oppo product, but reading the myriad good press and user reviews, I really wanted to give one a try. Was really thinking about buying the 95 but found out that the 105 would be coming to the market in 3-6 months (when I was finally deciding to take the plunge). So, not being an early adopter on most things, just waited till now for the release of the newest player. I’m glad I did.

I was very pleasantly surprised at the quality of everything in the box. The player itself weighs 17.68 lbs. (old backpacking gear habit). Very nice looking IMO with the centered drive and attractive front; a bit of understated elegance. All the accessories came in a nice black box including a power cord, HDMI cable with filters (never seen one with filters), remote, batteries, and a wireless dongle with a remote wireless base. I had read there was an extension for an MHL device like a Roku stick so you could relocate that in the event you have doors on your rack system, but that did not come in the box. Maybe that’s the remote wireless base I mentioned above. -I’ll need that for my installation if I get a Roku stick. Anyway, very nice, complete package. See below for a couple of photos.

I am working on a couple quick write-ups for both use as a Blu-ray player and as a Redbook CD player. I’ll post them later.





12/21/82012 - As an afterthought, I thought I’d mention that the cords that came with the player are quite robust. Here is what is written on the jacket of the cable.
1 – HDMI Cable: HighSpeed HDMI Cable with Internet E256295 SIJ AWW Style 20276 80*C 30V VW-1 HDMI Freeport
1-Power Cord: (VL) E140081 SJT 3 X 14 AWG 105*C 300V VW-1 NS CSA SJT 3X 2.08MM (14 AWG) 105*C 300V LL 86908 FT2
Edited by Pokey77 - 12/21/12 at 3:39pm

I have no problem with the 105, just that one case when I hooked it up directly to the amps for an experiment to see how it would compare to my pre-amp. Will post below the solution from the person who hit the nail on the head.

I assumed that as in the past that some components didn't play well together when building a system. Since I beleived that this was just a player, that it might be the case here.


Thanks for the info and link. My solution is posted in the next reply.


Thank you! You hit the nail on the head by changing polarity.


Thanks dmusoke, but it was the XLR cables.

Bob, thank you for your detaied write up. I have printed it out for future reference.

Thanks everyone for their replys. I hope no one got the wrong impression that i felt something was amiss with the 105, in fact it's just the opposite. I bought the 105 for several reasons, I needed a 3D bluray player, I was wanting the USB along with Ethernet streaming. My CD player was long in the tooth and it was a good time to make some consolidations of equipment. I still have numerous sources and therefore need a pre-amp that can handle all those sources with the most transparency. Everything runs through it and I am very satisfied with how it functions and the output.

I was surprised that I needed to reverse the polarity on the XLR outputs as these are Purist Audio XLR cables that were connected to my CD player with no problem after two pre-amps. When I hooked up the Oppo to the pre-amp everything still played and sounded as it should. Go figure! The Krell amps loved the direct connect when properly configured. When I re-attached the Oppo to the pre-amp with the polarity changed, it sounded the same as before, very pleasant. Now I haven't had time to compare the direct connect vs the pre-amp, but I hope you understand when the polarity was reversed and directly connected to the amps it sounded (to me) horrible.

Thanks again.

Gary

See the FAQ for supported file types.

Note that OGG works as its own audio file, and as a codec in OGM containers, but not in MKV.

No 5.1 for OGG.

-Bill

And NTFS volumes can be much bigger:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/choosing_between_ntfs_fat_and_fat32.mspx?mfr=true

Bob, I got a couple of novice questions for you:

If I set the main volume on the Oppo so that LF/RF produce 75dB SPL and then, adjust the volume knob on the sub until it too achieves 75dB SPL, how can I have +15dB of boost? Did you mean that I use the volume knob on the sub until it is adjusted to 90dB (+15dB higher than LF/RF)?

Should I adjust the volume knob on the sub to give me +10dB for SACD and +15dB for the rest of the stuff (2.1 CD, BD and Cable box)? Or should they all have a +15dB boost?

Thanks

Hi All

Here is a picture of the 105 & AV7005 using the analog connectors. I am using the dedicated stereo outputs for the front left & right inputs of the AV7005.

If I am correct this way I can use two seperate sub's and still have it work in direct mode on the AV7005 using my FLAC files on my PC streaming with DNLA.

This would be the second best way instead of the 105 dedicated stereo outputs going straight to the power amp.

Everyone agree on this?

When I switch the audio input on my Classe SSP800 between analog and HDMI I lose the video signal from the Oppo 105 (I use the same HDMI input for video for both) and I can't get it back unless I power off both the Classe and the OPPO.
Anyone else have this problem?
I'm still finding the analog sound too bright and thin, but hopefully awaiting break in improvement.

Oppo BDP 105 – As a Blu-ray player

I have been using my 105 for the past week now. It’s really nice to use a player that responds very quickly to commands; more DVD-player-like. And it sure doesn’t hurt that it loads a Blu-ray like a DVD as well. Can’t believe how fast I can get started now. Before I used to put a Blu-ray in and walk down the hall to the kitchen to get a snack and by the time I got back it would be at the menu. Now, I can’t hardly get out of the room before it has booted up.

I have watched a number of Blu-rays and DVDs since I installed the player. The first disc I remember watching was Disc 3 of Season 1 of the TV show “Hell on Wheels”. I couldn’t believe how well the up-scaling worked on that disc. It made the DVD output look very Blu-rayish. Sound quality was pretty stunning as well. This was just out of the box and after playing “Iron Man”, which is what I inaugurated the player with. The player has about 30 hours on it now and I’m using various CDs to burn it in.

My current player is a Marantz BD7003. I am running the sound via coax to the DAC section of a Cambridge Audio 840C. This has been a great combo and I’ve been using it for about 3.5 years now. A Vidikron VL-52 monitor does the display duties and McIntosh/Martin Logan do the sound. My system is two-channel and that is why the BDP 105 really appealed to me. I have been wondering for some time if the BDP 105 could significantly better my current player. Now I can finally find out.

The following comments are based on my viewing of Prometheus. I had asked a guy at my dealership what some of the best new Blu-ray titles were for PQ/SQ and this is one that he mentioned. After watching it, I can say that I think it is pretty stunning in both respects. So this disc worked great for me to evaluate the performance of the 105 vs. my current setup.

Note: I watched the movie for the first time last night but didn’t feel like staying up to compare the two players.

I decided to watch the Marantz player first today. I looked at the Menu, Chapters 1 and 8, and the Credits section of the Blu-ray to evaluate both PQ and SQ. I inserted the disc and it took approximately 1 minute and 15 seconds to get to the first text on the screen. So, when I finally got to the menu, I noticed that the menu looked dark and of lower resolution. Not very attractive based on my memory from the night before. The images of the actors were not very well resolved either. I moved on to the movie and some of the scenes looked quite amazing. But many of them were not very convincing having color smearing and imaging that lacked fine resolution. Facial coloring and rendering were not as good as I had remembered on the 105 the previous night either. The text on the credits looked pretty good but the music at the end did not have a natural organic feel and sounded a little veiled. I do note that the last scene with the monster and the huge echo it made as the scene faded out sounded pretty good though.

So with the review sections of the movie done I moved on to the BDP 105. The only changes required for this were that I move the HDMI cord from the Marantz to the Oppo and to switch the sound input on the McIntosh from CD1 to Video to do sound duties for the Oppo. I also used the same copy of the Blu-ray movie and both the Marantz and the Oppo use the same model of the top of the line Blue Jeans interconnect, one for each. Both players are set to 0 on all picture settings and I let the Vidikron handle all the color settings; it is professionally calibrated. I have essentially no variables so as to hear and see what it is the two players do without influence from calibration, media, or interconnects. I have not updated the firmware since viewing movies and playing CDs all work correctly.

So, on to the 105. The Oppo fired up the disc to first text in just 15-20 seconds and was to the menu pretty quickly after that. The first thing I noticed was the menu looked so much better. With the Marantz, the menu looked dark and poorly made (engineered); one dimensional, like an image hovering over a black background. But on the Oppo, it could be seen that the menu image was actually the interior of a globe or universe. The front image contained blue lines running to vectors and behind that the inner surface of a globe could clearly be seen; very 3D-like and convincing. And the shots of the actors on the menu were much more convincing as well. As I moved on to the movie, it was quite evident how the player performed at a much higher resolution. For example, the clouds around the spaceship in the opening scene looked much more wispy and life-like and the scene just felt more real. I also found that the player was very good at resolving partial/low light and dark or slightly dark scenes very well. When the character David was walking from one area to another within Prometheus (the spaceship) and the lighting was changing from partial, to full light, to dark, the player was able to render those lighting conditions very convincingly. Facial coloring and likeness are something hard to get right but the Oppo did a significantly better job than the Marantz. There are many more examples I could try to describe that would show the Oppo’s strong points, but I’m not much of a reviewer as you’ve probably already noted.

After watching this one movie, it is just plain obvious that the 105 is equal to but mostly quite superior to the Marantz in picture quality. Based on my impressions this week, I had felt that the Oppo was pretty good and certainly at least somewhat better than the Marantz. But I didn’t know what I was missing out on until I did this comparison this morning. Picture quality is quite stunning.

I know I haven’t mentioned sound quality, so here is a summary of my findings. -There’s really no contest here. The Oppo has a very low noise floor and that allows it to be highly resolving and to provide a holographic sound quality that just feels real. No veiling of the sound was noted. Just life-like sounds of water, rushing wind, the human voice, music; all of it was produced in a very pleasing way with no rolling off of the upper-end. I wrote in my notes that all these sounds were “clear, analog, awesome”. Ambient noise and sounds also had that transparent real quality about them as well, thus my “analog” comment. The scene at the end where the monster makes the huge echoing sound as the scene fades out sounded significantly better than on the Marantz. It has amazing decay and a very holographic presentation. One thing I did notice is that while the bass is very well defined and controlled on the Oppo, it is not as full and lower-reaching as the Marantz playing through the Cambridge 840C. But it is fairly close and I will have to wait to see how it sounds once the player gets some hours on it. All this for me adds up to a higher level of enjoyment and I can’t wait to use the player tonight.

Based on my comparison of the two players today, it is an easy decision to let the Marantz go. It is just not in the same league as the Oppo. And this shouldn’t be too hard to understand with the Marantz being a last generation player. So, for me, my apprehension and questions have finally been answered. The Oppo BPD 105 is certainly the best Blu-ray player that has been in my system and it truly performs at a much higher level compared to my current player. I decided to write this up because I know some of you, like me, have questions related to the picture- and sound-quality of this player. I hope this helps. -Now I still have to delve into the DAC section and play around with all of the possibilities available there.

When LF/RF output +75dB SPL (which is a function of the Volume setting in the player), and the Sub ALSO outputs +75dB SPL (adjusted using it's own volume knob) then you are good. That means the necessary boost for the Sub has been implemented. Otherwise the Sub would be producing a different level of output.

TECHNICAL NOTE: Due to a room response effect called Room Gain, the Sub's bass output gets a little bit of a boost. 2-4dB is normal. And so it is not uncommon for the most pleasant Sub volume setting to be just a few dB hotter than the main speakers.

If any of the speakers are set to Small in the OPPO then the Sub needs +15dB of boost for everything except for one case. The one case is if you choose to use SACD Output DSD for SACD playback. In that case there is no Crossover processing possible (no audio processing of any sort), and so all speakers are treated AS IF they had been set to Large.

And when all speakers are Large in the OPPO then the Sub needs +10dB boost.

If you want to set some speakers Small, and don't want to have to worry about the special case, then simply use SACD Output PCM instead. If you are going to set all speakers Large anyway, then the DSD case is no different -- +10dB Sub boost for everything.
--Bob

Bob,

Thanks again for all the information.

I looked at the Test Report for the 3-Channel Emotiva and it was tested at 1.025V at its input to produce rated power output into 8 and 4 ohms so it should fit your purposes just right.

 

Very fancy expensive cables and they were wired incorrectly???

 

Thanks for the nice and detailed review Pokey77 ...

Has anyone tried the Sennheiser HD650 headphones with the Oppo BDP=105 headphone output? I would imagine that it delivers sufficient power but just want to check ;-)

Thanks!

Cheers.

Tony

I am at 200+ hours of burn in and this player continues to sound better and better. Primarily using as my front end in my 2 channel music system but it does some double duty feeding blu-ray's to my living room LCD (I have a separate Home Theater with an Oppo BDP-93). I have already sold most of my prior CD front end (Rega Planet>MSB Full Nelson Link Dac III/MSB Power Base/Nordost Silver Shadow Coaxial) which sounded very good but not close to the Oppo in imaging, soundstage and smoothness. Never mind it was limited to only Redbook CD's. And that isn't even talking about it's added video capabilities which are first rate.

The Oppo is slightly bright at this point but my room is a major challenge (hardwood floors, many windows, cathedral ceilings, open on one side). It certainly improved on the Rega in taming this.

What makes this player special is the vast multitude of things it can do as everyone here knows: I am using the built in headphone amp. Streaming my FLAC's via my network using DB Poweramps Asset DLNA server. Streaming Pandora/Netfix. Have my cable box utilizing the HDMI In to take advantage of the Sabre DAC's. And of course playing CD/SACD/DVD-A & Blu-ray audio. And I just ordered the Roku stick which will utilize the MHL connector and add Amazon functionality.

I love this player and it isn't going anywhere but here are my only complaints so far:

1) Headphone Amp - agree with everyone's assessment's on the headphone amp. Utilizing my HiFiMan HE-500's the sound is amazing but nowhere near enough of it. This problem is more acute with Blu-Ray's. Unless Oppo can find a way to add more output volume in firmware upgrades I am definitely going to need a headphone amp which is an added expense
2) Streaming - no ability to build playlists from your FLAC/high res collection. I have also not been successful getting it to shuffle yet either. Either way improvements in the ability of this player to manage a hi res library would be very welcome. This may force me to adding a PC front end to utilize the Asynchronous USB Dac
3) The C13 power connector does not give the best connection for my power cord which utilizes a C15 (Shunyata Sidewinder VTX).
4) Lack of control/responsiveness from both the player & the remote - Oppo has already replaced the remote once but I am still experiencing issues which I am discussing with them. Very often the controls on the remote and the player do not work. It forces me to power down the system to get those back. Yesterday this happened when I was playing a Blu-Ray and went to the setup screen.


I am hoping I don't have to send this back and this can be fixed in a firmware update. Has anyone else experienced this?

This is a killer media center player for $1200. With a couple of fixes/enhancements it would be a near perfect solution for most people

Happy to report that the Chris Botti blu-ray was a marvelous experience last night. Video was great but the sound, oh the sound. Fabulous clarity, lots of air, and a wonderful smooth sound.

It's actually a C14 power inlet on the player - C13 and C15 are the plugs on the cables. A C15 plug should be fully compatible with a C14 inlet as the only difference is the ridge on the bottom of the C15 connector (and C16 inlet) which would prevent a C13 plug from being used in a C16 inlet. The only functional difference is the C13/C14 pair is rated for 70 °C versus 120 °C for a C15/C16 pair. C13/C14 connectors are FAR more common on consumer electronics products as there's really no need for the extra heat rating of the C15/C16 connectors which are typically used for things like electric kettles (for boiling water) and other similar appliances that are supposed to get hot. In all my years using consumer electronics gear, including a number of products from high end companies such as Krell, Proceed, Mark Levinson, Lexicon, etc., I have never owned a product with a C16 power inlet, so I'd be pointing my complaint at the power cable using a C15 connector instead of the FAR more common C13 connector, though there really shouldn't be any fit issues anyway unless the presence of the ridge makes for a slightly looser fit because there's a bit less contact area between the plug and socket.
I don't recall anyone else reporting any issues like this with the 103 or 105. I'd suggest you continue working with Oppo on this.

Is there any way to connect the 105 to a Power Control port in my receiver?

Thanks,
Josh

Also, are there any instruction on how to use the 105's remote to control my receiver, or is that not possible?

Thanks,
Josh

I have an Oppo 95 going direct to Acoustic Energy Pro Sat via balanced XLR. As the voltage output was higher than expected input levels, wrote to my manufacturer. Acoustic Energy support recommended attenuators in this situation.

I went with the Rothwell XLR attenuators. High frequencies seemed to shine better.

Do yourself a favor and get a RF repeater and an RF universal remote.

IR is for the birds.

That's not possible. Use any of the various brands of programmable remotes.
--Bob

The 105 does not have a Trigger input to control coming out of standby if that's what you mean. You may be able to use HDMI CEC from the receiver to power on the 105. Look for discussion in your receiver manual regarding remote control of devices over HDMI cables. In the OPPO manual, see the discussion for HDMI CEC.
--Bob

Using IR-same here. Infrequent and haven't bothered to document the circumstances, but cold reboot required.

Thank you very much

Fury

I use HD650 cans. The volume is certainly adequate for playing stereo content. If you play multi-channel content, the attenuation that comes with the down-mix to stereo may or may be a problem for you depending on how loud you want to blast your ears. It's not a problem for me.
--Bob

*edited to correct model number*
Edited by Bob Pariseau - 12/16/12 at 9:43am

There are two "standard" ways to wire XLR. That's why the OPPO includes the setting to select which to use.
--Bob