Official OPPO BDP-105 Owner's Thread - Page 125

I apologize I should have listed the rest of my equipment.

Aperion Grand Verus Towers, Center and Surrounds
Emotive XPA-5 amp

I am new to this forum and this is my first post.

I recently purchased my first blue ray player (Oppo BD105) my receiver does not support HDMI, so my connections are as follows: HDMI out of the Oppo directly to the TV. 6 analog cables out of the Oppo to my receiver for 5.1 sound. I am also using the dedicated stereo output for CD playback. I noticed last night when watching Skyfall, that during quiet passages of the movie I heard buzzing. When I paused the movie and listened, the buzzing becomes audible from my listening position at about -25.0 db. The same buzzing is heard from the dedicated stereo outputs. I tried moving the player as far away as I could from my receiver (about 6 inches) They are side by side. I tried a heavy duty power cord I have. I also tried separating the cables behind the stand as best I could but it is still somewhat jumbled. I have everything plugged into a Monster Power center HTS 2000. Anybody have any ideas?? Thanks.

When you configure the Oppo's dedicated stereo outputs to be FL/FR, you would connect the Oppo's dedicated stereo outputs to the FL/FR inputs of the Marantz multi-channel analog input in place of the multi-channel FL/FR outputs on the Oppo. The point of doing this is that it uses the Oppo's better dedicated stereo DAC board for FL/FR of the multi-channel output. Then you would only use the multi-channel input on the Marantz rather than 2 separate inputs. Obviously, doing so would you prevent using the processing in your Marantz for stereo material.

But the key here is that when you're using one of the stereo inputs on the Marantz, it isn't using the subwoofer output on the Oppo - it's only getting signals from the left/right inputs that are connected to the Marantz. The Oppo's subwoofer output ONLY gets used when you select the 7.1 multichannel input on the Marantz.

Since your Marantz has HDMI inputs, I really don't see any point in using both a stereo analog input and the multichannel input on the Marantz as if you want to use the bass management and Audyssey on the Marantz, you're going to be better letting the Marantz take the audio from the HDMI cable (keeping it digital as long as possible and only converting to analog once).

I would check the subwoofer cabling and the subwoofer power cable first and foremost as you could be experiencing 50/60Hz interference. Try plugging the subwoofer into the wall by itself to see what effect that has.

Cheers.

That's not a competitor.

A competitor is defined as: "one selling or buying goods or services in the same market as another".

Oppo's market is reasonably priced high-quality universal players with built-in DACs that moderately prosperous people can afford.

MSB's market is people who can afford to spend $10k just for a clock, or nearly $30k for a DAC, prefer separates, aren't bothered by the idea that potting circuits prevents looking at how they are designed in order to check the manufacturer's work, and who think they can tell the difference from the already excellent DACs in an Oppo. And who probably aren't EEs or recording engineers, and therefore unable to objectively evaluate a manufacturer's claims.

Now, MSB might make absolutely superb components. But I'll never know, and most people won't know, because we have jobs/kids/mortgages. Fortunately, I can own and enjoy the superb components from Oppo.

Remember that we're talking about digital circuitry. Per wikipedia, "ENIAC contained 17,468 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1,500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and around 5 million hand-soldered joints. It weighed more than 30 short tons (27 t), was roughly 8 by 3 by 100 feet (2.4 m × 0.9 m × 30 m), took up 1800 square feet (167 m2), and consumed 150 kW of power."

Today you can buy a chip that has way more processing power than ENIAC, runs orders of magnitude faster and cooler, and consumes a teeny fraction of the power, all while costing a few bucks.

Costlier is not necessarily better in digital. Bespoke is not necessarily better than mass-produced in digital.

A quote attributed to Henry Ford: "An engineer can do for a nickel what any damn fool can do for a dollar".

I understand the concept a little bit better now. I was using both the 105's 2 channel outputs and the 7.1 outputs connected to my Marantz. I was switching between the two on the Marantz depending on what I was listening to - CDs ( two channel) or blurays (multichannel).

So do you recommend using the analog outs for two channel music and HDMI for blurays? or just use the 7.1 analog input section on the Marantz but use the dedicated two channel FL and FR from the 105 and then use the center , surround and subwoofer outs from the 105's 7.1 section - then connect all of this to the 7.1 input of the Marantz?


Just so I understand correctly:


1. Connect the dedicated stereo FL and FR from the 105 to the FL and FR of the 7.1 input section on the Marantz
2. Connect the Subwoofer out from the 105's 7.1 section to the subwoofer input on the Marantz's 7.1 input section.
3. Configure the settings on the 105 for the dedicated two channel analog outs to - FL/FR in lieu of stereo downmix.
4. Do I configure the 7.1 settings in the 105 to stereo downmix? or does that not matter if the source is stereo anyways? It will only sense what channels it needs?


I appreciate the quick responses and do apologize if what I am asking is a little confusing.

Bothered to read the marcomm on http://www.msbtech.com/support/How_DACs_Work.php?Page=supportHome. Some of it is inaccurate, which speaks perhaps not highly of other claims they make.

For example: "Although reclocking is fantastic, we still have data coming in from an outside source at a different frequency from our internal clock, being clocked by a transport or computer. Having these two slightly different clocks running in the same box is a cause of noise. When we feed our DAC clock back to the source, and synchronize it with the DAC, we eliminate this source of noise and get even better timing accuracy."

This is only true if the buffer in the DAC is starved for data, which would be a really stupid design. If the buffer in the DAC has sufficient capacity, the feed from the transport can arrive late or early and it will have zero effect on the reconstruction process. A phase-locked loop isn't required. Transport accuracy is only necessary if the transport's clock is driving the process. Otherwise the transport is no more critical than a network or file stream.
Edited by jimshowalter - 2/17/13 at 10:48am

Thanks TK01. I tried that. It seems like that might have helped a little. I checked the back of my sub. It has 2 input options: xover or Input. I have the cable plugged into the Input side. I can still hear the buzz from my listening position when the receiver volume is set to -15.0 db

Thanks TK01. I tried that. It seems like that might have helped a little. I checked the back of my sub. It has 2 input options: xover or Input. I have the cable plugged into the Input side. I can still hear the buzz from my listening position when the receiver volume is set to -15.0 db

I spent two years battling ground loops and hum in our house. Finally had to isolate the power with a Furman, while running cables inside conduit. Your mileage may vary.

Some generally useful tips that could help:

Isolate each stage of the process, component-swapping where possible.

It helps greatly if you can start by taking your Oppo to a friend's house and hooking it up there. If it hums, send it back to Oppo. If not, you know it has something to do with your setup.

Assuming it's not the Oppo, try connecting the Oppo to a borrowed amp in your setup, bypassing your receiver.

You can try swapping cables (not for perceived sound differences, but on the offchance you have a defective cable, which does happen).

And so forth.

If you think it's a ground loop, and you know an installer, you might be able to borrow an isolation diagnosis kit, which consists of various connectors that you put in circuit to block signal. This can also help find defective cables.

You can use Ebtech RCA-to-XLR (and vice-versa) transformers to isolate subwoofer signals. They have really good specs, and can kill off hums due to ground loops. (These are left in circuit, unlike the isolators which are just used for debugging.)

By the way, are you grounding your components to a shared, good ground? If not, you should try to do that.

The secret is to be methodical, conducting experiments where you change only one variable at once.

I'm presuming what you are hearing is coming from the speakers rather than from inside the chassis of the player. If so, the odds are excellent you have a "ground loop". A ground loop is garbage current that flows along the shields of the cables connecting your equipment, looking for a path back to ground so current can flow. It can hop from device to device even when the device is turned OFF.

These days, the single most common source of ground loop garbage is stuff that enters your house on the cable shield for a cable TV or satellite TV feed. So start by disconnecting the feed wire at the wall and see if the noise goes away. If it does, there are thing you can do to eliminate the stuff that's entering your house that way (start by fixing the grounding of the feed where it enters your house).

Another common source of ground loop current comes from having different devices in your system plugged into wall outlets that are at different "ground potential". A check for this is to temporarily plug everything into the same wall socket. If that cures the noise then an electrician can help configure your separate outlets to have common ground.

It is also possible you have a faulty device in your system which is presenting voltage on its chassis ground. This is not a good thing so you want to find what device is doing that. This can be a bit tricky, as you have to disconnect things in a logical order to try and prove which device is the source.

The OPPO has a 3-prong power plug, and the 3rd prong is a common way for ground loop current to complete the circuit to ground so that the garbage current can flow. The 3rd prong in the plug for a subwoofer is another common exit point. If application of a 3-prong to 2-prong "cheater" adapter eliminates the noise then you know for sure you have a ground loop. Using the adapter is NOT a good long term solution. It is much better to find the source of the garbage and eliminate it. It is unlikely the OPPO is the source of the problem. What's more likely is that adding it to your system simply added the missing link so that garbage current elsewhere in your system could finally flow.
--Bob

IMHO, there's nothing inherently different about music and movies when it comes to which way sounds better. When you want to use the analog output from the 105, regardless of what you're listening to, select the 7.1 input on the Marantz. When you want to use the processing in the Marantz for Audyssey for either music or movies, select HDMI for audio. My suggestion is to experiment with the various combinations and stick with what sounds better to you. In general, I prefer the result of applying Audyssey to everything I listen to (music and movies), but switch to the analog outputs on the Oppo to switch things up or to run tests for beta test club.
To keep the terminology straight, you want to connect the 105's Stereo Audio Out L and R to the FL and FR of the 7.1 input section on the Marantz.
Also connect the C, SL, SR, SBL, and SBR outputs from the 105's 7.1 audio outs to the corresponding inputs on the Marantz's 7.1 input, presumably as you currently have them connected.
Correct.
For stereo material, there's nothing to downmix as it's already stereo anyway. Generally speaking, you want to set the downmix on the Oppo to reflect your actual speaker configuration, so just keep it at 7.1.

Thank you! I hate to take up discussion space with this, but could you or anyone else please walk me through how to "use direct storage or DLNA DMP" instead of SMB? I'm not quite sure what this means or how to accomplish it.

To recap,

Right now I have a about 2TB of high-res FLAC files on this: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=280

...which is connected to my wireless router via ethernet cable. And my OPPO BDP-105 is reading the files over wifi network. And they are all randomly jumbled up.

Before I got the network/ethernet drive, I was using "O-Share" to share the files on a 1TB USB external hard drive (connected to computer via USB) with the BDP-105 and with that method, the files were displayed in alphabetical order just fine.

What do I need to do differently to make it so the OPPO BDP-105 displays the files/folders in alphabetical/numerical order when using my network/ethernet drive??

Thank you in advance for your patience with my limited knowledge of what you were talking about in your original reply.

Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated!

Dave

^^^
oShare will do the job for you.

Here are the DLNA help pages for that product; maybe some help there? http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/list/p/247,335/search/1/kw/dlna

-Bill

Thanks for the help.

One last question. I have setup the oppo and marantz as you have suggested in your last response but I am having an audio issue when I set the stereo signal to FL/FR in lieu of the down-mixed stereo. When listening to a CD or music via USB Flash drive, the sound is very grainy and somewhat distorted. I will say, even though it is grainy and distorted, the volume is much louder than is down-mixed stereo is selected.

When I set the stereo signal to down-mixed stereo the sound is very good with no graininess or distortion.

Is there a potential issue with the 2 channel stereo analog section? I would think not because it works fine when set to stereo down mix.

Just to clarify I do not have the FL and FR from the oppo's 7.1 section connected. I am using the stereo FL and FR in place of those. But all is connected to the marantz 7.1 analog inputs.

Just point oShare to the files on your WDC My Book Live and then switch back to accessing oShare via DLNA on the Oppo.

to: gsr

I corrected the problem. The FL and FR speakers had a gain of 9.0dB each in the oppo settings. Set them back to zero and the issue has been corrected.

Thanks again.

You could also try to connect Oppo to Emotiva directly (don't forgt to enable variable volume control and set volume level of Oppo to something reasonable via remote control).
This would ensures that Oppo configured properly, and maybe, just maybe, you'll like SQ better in this configuration.

I am glad you found the problem.
I also have the AV8801 and have no problems with the dedicated analog outputs (RCA and XLR).

- Rich

Simple solution found. After double checking all settings and recommendations, problem continued. Then I reconnected and again updated the harmony one remote. Viola' all now working. Can only conclude my first update somehow failed to complete or initialize. All buttons responding properly. Thanks guys for your help.

Listening to John Coltrane in Miami in front of my fire pit.

 

OK...the ESS dac belongs to a class of dacs using the sigma delta technology, basically sampling a signal so fast that you are able to track 1-bit changes accurately and then through a decimation process, its converted to lower speed but with higher resolution. So,instead of using 1-bit, they use 6-bit DAC instead which is again sampled very quickly and then converted through the fore mentioned decimation process to a  higher resolution 32-bit word at a lower sampling rate.

 

Sigma Delta converters are very accurate converters used in high precision DC type applications where the sampling rates are lower than 500kHz or so. You look at a spec of a typical SD converter and it says its 16-bit accurate at 400kHz but 24-bit accurate at 1kHz. These are not 'gimmicky' converters just because they use very efficient architectures to achieve their high precision and high resolution specs.

 

The Cirrus dacs(CS4382A i believe) used in the BDP-103/93 are also sigma-delta as well and they perform extremely well. Its sad MSB has decided to confuse the listener by implying their old and traditional ladder logic based dac architecture is superior to the newer and more efficient sigma delta. at the end of the day, as far as the dac is concerned, its all about SNR, THD, DC accuracy and other specs, regardless of technology used to achieve these specs.

 

This guy making these claims cannot be a design engineer for no audio engineer would not claim such ignorance of sigma delta modulation, saying the things he did. Sales/Marketing 'engineers' are a deadly bunch IMHO, engaging in practices of false promises to customers just 'to get the deal', false/misleading advertising etc.... OTOH Application Engineers and Design Engineers are the 'bomb', always telling the truth as it is to the consternation and horror of the sales/marketing guys....And that's why we are constantly prohibited to talking to customers directly. We always have to go through the filter of sales/marketing people.

Edited by dmusoke - 2/17/13 at 10:15pm

I am still seeing vertical lines at the extreme right and sometimes left of the picture, when playing DVDs only (not with Blu-ray).

They show up particularly well when the Oppo goes into screen-saver mode--then the right edge has a 2-5 pixel strip of blobs from whatever is being masked by the black of the screen saver.

Oppo is set to do all processing, with 16:9 format. Display is set to pure/dot-by-dot.

Latest firmware.

Is anyone else seeing this?

The geometry error on the right for the OPPO screen saver during SD-DVD pauses is a known problem. OPPO will address that in a firmware update.

When else are you seeing issues?
--Bob

Still a dream.

Note that if you connect an actual Mac to the Asynchronous USB DAC Input of the 105, then you can play Apple Lossless tracks (even DRM protected tracks) that way (stereo LPCM up to 192KHz 24-bit). That input goes straight to the DACs in the 105 -- bypassing any audio processing. So you do lose any bass management you might be using when playing other content.
--Bob

 

Are you an EE?  Yes marketing to push boxes!

Hi folks,
I will be receiving my BDP-105 tomorrow and would really appreciate any set up tips. I am 50/50 HT and music and currently have my HTPC, Blu-Ray, Directv and Roku all connected via HDMI to my Onkyo 5508 pre/pro.

1) If I connect my HTPC directly to the 105 to take advantage of the DAC, what would be the optimal connection route? PC's HDMI to Onkyo and PC's USB to OPPO?
2) Any audio or video improvements connecting Directv directly to the OPPO via HDMI?
3) Any and all other suggestions

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

So if I understand this correctly, if I use DSD-Direct-to-Analog Conversion, there is no way that I can configure my OPPO to make the subwoofer play on 2.0 (stereo) SACD's. Am I understanding this correctly?

Thanks in advance,
John

Precisely right. When DSD-Direct-to-Analog Conversion is engaged (i.e., when SACD Output DSD is set and the DSD function is not blocked by limitations of your HDMI attached output devices), then the DSD digital audio goes DIRECT to the DACs. No audio processing is possible. No Crossover processing. No down-mixing. No time alignment (distance adjustments). Nothing. Any such stuff would have to be done external to the player.

For example, your Subwoofer might offer connections so that you can pass L/R THROUGH the Subwoofer on the way to the amp, with the Sub itself extracting the appropriate bass due to its own, internal Crossover circuit, and passing on the rest to the amp for your front speakers.

If you want the OPPO to do the audio processing, simply set SACD Output PCM instead.
--Bob