I am shocked at this news, and it's very sad. I can see from some of the comments here why Oppo might be shutting down. But I thought they were having success with the Sonica DAC and maybe their other associated products. I love my BDP-105, and I would pick up another one as a backup, but as folks know they are going for premium money on the used market. A 205 would be great too (despite the lack of HDCD and SACD-ripping support), but $1299 is a lot of coin to spend with no advance notice, and on a backup machine. Perhaps Sam is right and they'll be available for a few more months. Still, though, very sad - one of the great electronics brands of the 21st century.
5 1/2 years ago, after being convinced by my son that it was a common sense move to buy a 103, considering the size of my collection, not to mention the high-quality of said discs, I got myself on the "wait list." Since receiving it, it has been in use every day, for several hours per day. Whether watching a DVD, or Blu-ray, or listening to an SACD, or CD, or DVD-A, or one of two USB sticks, it's a part of my daily life. I can only pray it continues to stay as is, as affording a "back up" player is impossible financially, as I'm trying to buy a house for the 103 to move into. Shocked. .
I have no fear of buying the 205 if that's what I decide on. I'm a long time buyer of Oppo products and trust they will be around for awhile to do warranty and out of warranty repairs. If per chance they are not then it'll be like if I bought a new Sony player as their service is close to non existent especially on players a few years old. I speak from experience with Sony CD and DVD players and their horrible customer service. I spoke with someone at Oppo a few hours ago and it's for real. Indicated that players will be available through the summer with more shipments coming in.
Kinda weird timing as I was thinking all weekend on pulling the trigger on a 203 to play my SACDs. Also, Crutchfield and Audio Advisor both seem to have raised the price of these from $549 to $559 in the last few hours. I could swear it...
When I was in India a few weeks back, adverts for these were everywhere ... that's where the hardware spending is, these days ... OPPO Smartphones, Top Smartphones - OPPO India
Crutchfield and Audio Advisor have always charged a bit more for Oppo players. I bought a 205 from Crutchfield awhile back and they price matched Oppo's price. I eventually returned the 205 but they were a great place to deal with. Excellent customer service from Crutchfield .
I'm probably going to lose sleep over this tonight. Hopefully the UDP-203 was engineered to last for decades.
I’m wondering how much re-sale value my 203 will have tomorrow morning EST! Serious though, this sucks.
My guess is that the OEM that Oppo Digital uses (Oppo Digital is an AMERICAN company, by the way, headquartered in Silicon Valley) is not going to stop production of these parts.
I’ve never seen a DVD look better than it does on my 83. Curious if anyone know if the new ones look as good or better ?
I don’t have any skin in this game, but I’m sad to read this. Most folk, like my girlfriend just don’t appreciate the picture and sound quality of Blu-ray. I’ll give her credit for appreciating I Tonya last week.
Not to burst our little protective SHF Bubble, but virtually no one outside of here cares about SACD or DVD-A. Or "serious listening" for that matter. Ear buds and TV apps for the Trendmongers. Yeah, right. You'll be high-bidding against a buncha other goobers who previously put off getting an Oppo. Just add this to The Giant Pile Of Bad News, I guess. The Sad Little Pile Of Good News is so wimpy. As I'm in my "4th quarter" I think I can sit tight with my recently-serviced 103. I didn't see any of this coming, but I did coincidentally rip all my hi-res discs, that'll help. Maybe.
People will pay what they want to pay but personally I wouldn’t go near a $1000+ piece of equipment, made in China, who is in the process of folding up shop, with a 100 foot pole.
My favorite Video brand of all time, on my 3rd player now. Very sad to hear they are bowing out of the business.
As an owner of four players, I'm sad to see this news. In retrospect you could see the writing on the wall once they got into streamers, headphones and headphone amps. With players they had a huge advantage in terms of price-to-quality ratio, but in the other categories I suppose they were one manufacturer out of many at similar price points.
****. I'm at a -103 still. Fully expected to upgrade at some point... didn't think fate would force its hand so soon? What went wrong?
