Official OPPO BDP-105 Owner's Thread - Page 8

Yes, same for the 95,93 and 103. They all have low output impedance of under 200 ohms plus very fine volume controls within their respctive DACs...

Arrrggg!!! What a teaser!

Pretty sure the peeps be modding their Sennheiser cables with XLR connections and running right out of the balanced back end of the Oppo.

Check on head-fi in case I've lost it though ....

If the results of my work meet my expectations:

The 103 will be a FANTASTIC machine for ~$1K, that will perform very well for audio, both 2CH and MCH and will be improved in both its performance as a video player and a transport for feeding digital audio to a pre/processor.

The 105 will be a WORLD CLASS player AND DAC, with our tube analog stage, for < $3500 and will perform at the $10K+ range ABSOLUTELY! We may also offer an upgrade option to the SMPS that will further improve video playback! I will investigate a SS mod for the 105 that is likely 1/2 the price of the tube mods.

I wonder if he has he come across a sub $2K transport that he couldn't improve upon?
Edited by bakerwi - 11/21/12 at 5:51pm

I have this problem with my 83, but have not experienced it at all on the 105. I also have the "Auto Play Mode" set to OFF . Might this help to alleviate the problem?

(And thanks, Bob, for your reply about the headphone volume that I asked about.)

It is possible that with Auto Play ON the Display (in particular) may not be fully awake yet when the music disc initiates the HDMI handshake during the disc load on Power UP. However, that would not apply to discs you start after everything is already powered up.

So I suspect the difference you've found between the 83 and the 105 is simply that the 105 is faster.
--Bob

Thanks, Bob and Neuromancer, for clearing up the audio issue for me. I can keep HDMI audio from the player turned off and use analog outs to my stereo preamp for CDs, SACDs, streaming and movie discs. I only use my plasma's speakers for TV shows (from an HD-DVR).

When I first installed the new beta firmware on my BDP-105 I witnessed odd behavior on the Network screen. My DLNA server and SMB server appeared... then disappeared... then re-appeared... then disappeared... over and over. I did manage to select the SMB server once when the cycle appeared to have stabilized. Selected one of my FLAC files and playback started -- then failed a few seconds later. The BDP-105 then dropped back to the Network screen where the cycle continued.

That was a few hours ago. I just tried again and things now seem to be working as expected. Fingers crossed...

By the by, the person is is "Dan Wright". The COMPANY is ModWright Instruments.
--Bob

Hi,
Well I got the 105 today and installed it into the rack tonight. I'm sitting listening to music CD's and am very shocked at the great improvement in the quality of music in my system. Will give it a few days burn-in. I have been using BD players mostly for home theater use but I can see going back to audio. WOW!!! Here are a few pictures. I'm using a Denon AVR-5308CI for a pre/pro and Verastarr SS64 for bi-amping front VMPS-40 modded mains with stereo SVS PB13 Ultra's. I have a Parasound HCA-2205A for surround duties.

My mistake indeed ... I talked to him and he said he plans to improve the power of the headphone amplifier, giving it more output power as well as benefiting from the tube sounds.

RickS,
Thanks for including the nice photos of OPPO's new Rack Mount Kit for the BDP-105!
--Bob

 

Does the rack mount kit make the 105 a full 3U height unit?

Yes, a full 3U. Please see instuctions below.

^ Thanks RickS ...relieved and glad to know i'll sacrifice one extra 1U slot in my tight rack.

Well, I received my 105 today and I'm impressed with its built quality but not with its glitchy showing though. It struggled with direct tv when changing channels and at times would freeze for a long while and I had to turn the unit off to get it to work, I'm using the 7.1 analog out which sounds impressive but the unit would not always respond to the volume command and at times it would go up all at once with a delayed response to the commands, and now when I tried to trim each channel for movie viewing, the unit refuses to do it, even though the numbers go up and down, the volume for each channel stay the same. Not a strong showing for a first night. I wonder if there's something I could do to remedy the symptoms?

Please forgive my cluelessness but I'm really  puzzled as to why folks would connect their cable or sat boxes into the 105 HDMI inputs. Is their AVR or sat_box upscaling/de-interlacing performance so bad that they must use the Oppo instead???  Now to watch TV, you must first turn on TV, then bluray player, then AVR???. Most newer satelite and cable boxes(past 5 years at least) actually have rather excellent scaling and de-interlacing chips(Broadcom BCM 74xx series). In my MOXI HD box, i tell it to output only 720p & 1080i video streams. 480i streams from SD channels are automatically upscaled to 1080i by default. I feed the Moxi output into my Anthem D2v which upscales everything to 1080p and the visual results are excellent especially on well recorded programs such as the 700 Club and many others. Yes, badly recorded programs still remain bad  but that is the fault of heavy compression (and re-compression) by the sat/cable providers. Actually the TV networks produce a high quality stream but it is re-compressed like heck by the service companies so that they may cram more channels into their pipe,

 

Obviously, I must be missing something here so i hope to be schooled(gently ofcourse) by those who use the Oppo like this.

 

Happy and blessed Thanksgiving to all Oppo-ites!

 

- David

I had the chance to compare the 95 with a few players.
I would rate the Linn Akurate DS best with a 10. 2nd and very close was an Audionet CD player (german high end brand) with a9.5; 3rd Linn Majik DS 8pts; 4th Naim Nd5 XS 7pts; 5th Oppo 95 with 5pts; 6th Marantz 7001KI 3 pts; 7th Marantz Sr9600 DAC 2pts. Overall all tested equipment was very good and I believe that if you do not directly compare; it is hard to find out what is what. I would be very interested where the 105 fits into this list. Hopefully it closes the gap to the Linn DS'S

Thank you very much for your inputs. I would say this is pretty much what I expected, with the added benefit of your part mentioning "if it were put next to each other it would be hard to discern"... unfortunately that's for me the biggest challenge in very high end audio and that's why I genuinely believe finding the right price point considering all factors including your room size, wall/floor materials and soundproofing quality is paramount.
All things considered the Oppo at that price seems like a fantastic challenger and I believe if it beats the Naim then I have a winner.
(notwithstanding the fact that if I connect the 95 with a DAC I may have a system better sounding than the Linn Akurate...)

I think it'll be difficult to beat the Akurate. However in my view the LP12 sounded better which I dislike a lot. Analog is not where I want to go. Actually I meant that you can differentiate only if you have the players in an A and B comparison. If you would listen to one and you have to say what it was without a direct reference you would be wrong most of the time.

The 105 is 2.5 rack spaces tall without the rack mount kit. The kit just fills in the extra .5 space.

I know many of you are still wanting feedback on the BDP-105 vs BDP-95, as with every other OPPO i have owned in the past ( DV-981HD to DV-983H, BDP- 83 to BDP-83 SE Nuforce Edition, BDP-95 to BDP-105), Oppo has found away to make improve upon their previous players. Only referring to (analog) audio quality,the margin of improvement is less and less with each Oppo product. Now on to the specific audio qualities of the BDP-105....As various others have reported, the bass does appear to be improved over the BDP-105. To my ears the bass could be described as less "boomy", which makes it seem that that Oppo was able to dig down and reproduce a few octaves lower compared to previous Oppo products. Additionally, the upper octaves seem to have more energy on top. I know many will read this and will think, Bdp-105 is "bright" sounding, but that is an inaccurate description. For those of you that are concerned with the lack of DAC stacking in the design of the BDP-105, this isn't something you will even notice sonically. In fact, I would say that the improved analog path has helped with the sound of this machine. Conservatively, I would quantify the amount as 0%-5% increase in sound over the BDP-95. (I am only referring to the discrete stereo connections, XLR and RCA) Those of you that are on the fence and simply want to purchase a universal player that sounds leaps and bounds better than the previous flagship Oppo player, this may not be the player for you. However, this the best sounding Oppo player to date and has so many important features on the audio side of the house(such as the use of this player as a DMP and USB Asynchronous DAC), that is what sets this player apart from other universal players on the market as well as other Oppo players.

I don't have an HDMI capable set up (receiver) so I'm using the Oppo as such, gentle enough? by the way I disconnected the Oppo for half an hour and cleaned the memory and all seems to be working including the trimming feature, hoping it continues to perform.

That doesn't equate to much improvement at all with "0%" being zilch. I guess it is re-assuring to know that the 105 DOES sound as good if not slightly better without the "benefit" of dedicated L/R channel dac stacking.

Thanks for the review.

In my case I'd like to get the AV Receiver/Processor out of the mix entirely - the 105 is allowing me to do that.

HDMI from my cable box goes into the HDMI input on the back of the 105.

My old processor (Arcam AVP700) was nice sonically but didn't do any upscaling of video - it just had HDMI switching/passthrough capabilites.

To play records I might shim an analog pre-amp with Hometheatre passthrough into the mix at some point.

I have a strange audio glitch again! I really like this player even though the little quirks are driving me crazy at times. My latest glitch is when playing a CD I get output thru the XLR but is intermittent thru the HDMI 2 split A/V into my Classe processor. When I play a Blu Ray disc the audio output seems to be fine. I did try the factory supplied HDMI cable with the same effect.

Seems identical to the 95 with improvement to 0-5%

So I got my 105 last night and wanted to post my initial thoughts before heading to Grandmas for Thanksgiving. Here is my system for those who are curious

Conrad Johnson LS 17 Pramp
Conrad Johnson 2300A Amplifier
MSB LINK II DAC (slightly modified)
Vandersteen 3A Sig with 2Wq subwoofer
Oppo 105
Oppo 103

So I was expecting to play the 105 against the 103 and see if I could hear a difference. After initially playing the 105, I didn't bother...the 2 channel 105 is a significant improvement in dynamics and lower end bass definition that I was hoping to hear. My only hesitation is that against my DAC it isn't as clear which is better. The most difficult issue I face in doing an A/B has to do with the line output levels, the Oppo is about three or four clicks quieter than my DAC so when switching between inputs, I have to turn the volume down and up in order to compare.

I am for sure an 80/20 kind of person so after the 105 has settled in I will do a more thorough listening session....but I really need to justify the price difference and if I really can hear it...I suppose trying SACD and other formats that can't be output to my DAC in HiRez will also help to my review.

So far both units are great, playing Pandora last night actually sounded pretty good. This is my first multimedia center unit, so I am finding myself immersed with new content and listening to things I wouldn't have been exposed to before since I never liked digital over internet sound quality until now.

If people can't notice the difference between the BDP 105 and the Panasonic 500 then two things are going on:

1. Their sensory perceptions are incapable of differentiation.

This isn't meant as an insult. I've had friends and family members who haven't noticed any differences at all between components whereas some say the difference is "night and day". Lucky for the people that can't notice the difference as they can be happy with a ghetto blaster and save a ton of cash.

2. Their system is incapable of differentiation.

This could be due to a number issues. There are a lot of components between the source and the final sound heard by the listener and any can degrade the sound considerably.

The most common I've found is overly complex passive crossover networks which "filter" and degrade the sound sometimes rendering a very high quality source such as the Oppo to just "average". For example I have two systems. One is capable of taking full advantage of a very high quality source such as the Oppo 105 and the other is not. On the secondary system, the Oppo does sound a little better than some of the inferior dacs. On the main system, the differences are like "night and day". Also price has a sparse relationship to sound quality. I've heard a pair of $4000 single driver speakers sound much more "refined" than a pair of $180,000 speakers. So if you can't hear much difference between the Oppo and another DAC/squeezebox etc then don't blame the Oppo look elsewhere within the system...

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to do the following:

1. compare the Oppo to a variety of pre-amps in the $150-$15k range and decide whether the Oppo sounds better standalone or with a preamp.
2. Compare the Oppo to a variety of external DACs in the $500-$15k range to determine where the Oppo fits with differing priced dacs.
3. Compare a variety of amps with differing input impedance to determine whether it is a "true preamp". Despite the "theory" it should work, this needs real life testing as I've had mixed results in the past.

I hope other people post their comparisons on the above items as well so we can get a feel of where the 105 ranks in the grand scheme of things.

I've also found this unit needs quite a bit of burn in time. I've been burning this in 24/7 since I got it and it took a long time to settle down. Plugging it in on arrival and then firing off a review after an hour or so is doing this unit a disservice in my opinion.....
Edited by djkiwi - 11/22/12 at 10:39am

Never thought of your scenario Luis, thanks. But what were you using before the 105? Component video / RCA audio from your cable box to your receiver?