Oppo UDP-205 Announced

Well as long as they sounded better than the OPPO 205 I reckon everyone would just buy OPPO 203's instead!!!

BTW.......Very happy with my 205's SQ direct into active ATC's

 

Lonson, just make sure you post your Oppo-205 impressions here.
I know I'm not the only one interested in your opinion & even if I am, post it anyway.

 

Agreed! Thanks to those members who Posted the links.

 

Will do, but I haven't owned any other Oppo and won't be doing a lot of listening to this as a strictly musical player.

 

Okay: preliminary report: I have about five hours on the machine now, out of the box and in use today.

First: I am very relieved to find that the balanced output has the gain I need for my current amp and my upcoming pair of monoblocks. Compared to the CXU it is considerably more gain and the loudness for DVR and Blu-ray playback is there and the some. Whew! This was the main reason I made the change.

There is a difference in picture and sound between the Oppo and the Cambridge Audio, but both are excellent players both visually and audio-wise. The Oppo certainly is heavier. And at least so far it has a less warm and dense sound. I can certainly see why one might enjoy one or the other. I feel I can enjoy both and could live with either in a great system. For my needs the balanced output of the Oppo suits my system more.

I enjoyed a few shows "On Demand" and experienced dropouts throughout on and off. I think it may have just been that series of programs though ("Falling Water.") Watching the Winter Olympics and a few other programs as a test I haven't had the dropouts. Something to keep an ear out. An episode of X-Files Season 6 on Blu-ray looked and sounded excellent.

To test the player for my other chief use I pulled out the Japanese Blu-ray Audio disc of Herbie Hancock's "Maiden Voyage" and listened to the 24/192 version on this disc (there is also a 24/96). Truly this sounded excellent.

So far so good and I'll probably have the CXU for sale. Using the balanced outputs and the pair of VooDoo Cable "Stradivarius Cremona" XLR cables I got a great deal on in trade with a fellow Decware owner I'm getting the gain and sound I wanted from this unit. Thanks for all the help in guiding me to a good buying decision.

 

I'm glad I read this thread. I was starting to worry about my player with the clicking noises when I play an SACD via DSD

 

Was it Diskhound bemoaning the lack of DACs with HDMI inputs?
Can't believe I forgot about this one but the Bryston BDA-3 DAC has like 4 HDMI inputs.
Gets consistently excellent reviews for SQ & bullet-proof operation

 

Glad you're liking it.
You can also set the output on the 205, like the 105, to variable and tweak the XLR output that way as well.
I had to dial mine down a bit as it was overdriving my pre-pro.
Made a significant difference in the SQ.
The thing about Oppo is every generation of their top end players have tangible improvements whether it's build quality, component selection, whatever.
The one downside of the 20x gen is a lot of folks are displeased with the exclusion of streaming apps.
I spoke to Oppo and their view was that it cost more time and money to include them and being a 4k player, every 4k TV now has them, which is true.
It involves another level of firmware etc., etc., etc.

 

My preamp seems to like gain and dishes out even more gain:

DECWARE Zen Triode Balanced Preamplifier model ZTPRE

So I have set the output to "Fixed." I don't stream any video or audio to my TV so the lack of those apps don't bother me. I don't use apps. I have the most basic phone I can, don't connect it to the internet, don't do digital files on computer etc. II am pretty darned old school!

I haven't experienced any more audio dropouts which is good. Been very happy with the machine so far. And interestingly enough my wife hasn't even noticed that I changed out machines watching TV tonight. I told her one was coming, didn't let her know it had arrived and been installed and so it's enough like the CXU TV and TV sound wise she didn't notice.

 

That was me! And yes, I am completely aware of the BDA-3. It's made just a few hours from here. As far as I can tell, its the only DAC on the market that accepts DSD over HDMI and processes it natively. It uses a pair of very nice AKM chips. It's $3500 so I guess I am bemoaning the lack of alternatives, hoping other companies will follow Bryston's lead that's all.

 

I checked out your equipment profile, Lon.
Thorough and impressive to say the least.
Seems you lean toward DecWare.
I have no experience with that brand.
Do you still spin vinyl?

 

I haven't spun any vinyl since I bought my ZTPRE preamp. . . I ran out of rack space! The ZTPRE has taken the place the Rega RP3 had occupied, it was going to be a possibly temporary situation and I thought I would swap my ZTPRE and Rega RP3 periodically and also slip in my Decware ZP3 phono preamp which is the best phono preamp I have ever heard. I fell in love with the ZTPRE and digital sounds so darned good right now that I haven't taken it out and put the RP3 back in since. Since I have about 40 times more CDs than LPs that's not a crippling choice!

As for Decware, yes, I've been using their components for over twenty years now. Bought the 27th amplifier Steve Deckert built and all my pre amplification and amplification and speakers are Decware, and I have an excess of them, need to start selling some. I've learned so much about audio from Decware components, from Steve Deckert and from other Decware owners and I have a system that I really build my days around. I've also been the manager of the Decware Facebook pages for the last four months, getting it "alive and well" again with some real effort and now some maintenance effort I'm keeping it moving along. Life is good for me. . . it's taken me a few decades but I have a system better than I ever dreamed I would have and I put it to use!

 

Quick question regarding the 205's HDMI outputs. If HDMI (Audio) is used would HDMI (Main) be video only? My plan is to use HDMI (Audio) to one HDMI input on my Emotiva XMC-1 for audio and HDMI (Main) to another HDMI input for video. I hope this will work as I'd like to take advantage of the better performance of the HDMI (Audio) output for multichannel music. Anyone with the 205 using this configuration?

 

Audio comes out of both HDMI outputs. I have not noticed a difference between the two in sound quality. YMMV.

 

OK, I just bought the UDP-205, what do I do about all of these darn filters? Can I just plug this thing in and start spinning discs or do I have to set these filters first? Are they all disabled as default and I can just ignore them?

Thanks in advance,

Rocky

 

Plug (in) and play. I didn't mess with them until the unit was a few months old.

 

^^^ Thanks!!!!

 

How would you get the XMC-1 to play both inputs simultaneously? My Marantz AV8802a will not permit the use of 2 HDMI inputs that way.

Have you been able to get audio from the HDMI video output at the same time that you are playing the HDMI audio out? In my experience, the audio is muted on HDMI video output under such circumstances.

 

Audio from both HDMI outputs simultaneously is not supported, IIRC. I do have an AV8805 en route, if you think that would make a difference.

 

You are correct in both instances. For some reason I thought one HDMI input could be set for audio and then another other for video. But when I went into the XMC-1's setup menu one can choose multiple audio input options (analog, optical and coaxial) but can only select HDMI 1 for the HDMI 1 input. I do not have the 205 in my system now (on it's way) but from earlier experience with the 205 HDMI (Main) audio is muted when HDMI (Audio) is connected. As suggested over at AVS I'll need to connect HDMI (Main) to my display directly. The downside is I'll lose the XMC-1's OSD. But it is what it is .

 

I am expecting an AV8805, too, but I doubt if it will be any different from its predecessor in this regard. Does any prepro have this facility?

 

None that I am familiar with.

 

You can not use both HDMI outputs simultaneously anyway,

Music in the Round #87: Oppo UDP-205

 

True in a way. You can use the 205's HDMI simultaneously if the HDMI (Main) is connected directly to a display for video and HDMI (Audio) to the processor for audio. At least that's the way it should work from reading the 205 manual (page 14). One can't use both HDMI outputs simultaneously expecting to get audio from both.

http://download.oppodigital.com/UDP20X/UDP-205_User_Manual_English_V1.0.0.pdf

 

Agreed. However, my only reason for connecting both of them was to be able to compare the audio outputs and this limitation made it clumsy because it not only required me to select between input sources on the Marantz but to plug/unplug the HDMI audio output on the Oppo in order to unmute the audio output from the HDMI video output.