OPPO BDP-103 and BDP-105 Networking Universal 3D Blu-ray Players (part4)

Good feature.

 

My 105 is no quieter or noisier with Pure Mode on or off. It could be an issue with individual units - but is it possible that the D (Darbee edition) model does exhibit a noticeable noise difference with Pure Mode on or off?

 

The 105 streams and plays DSD.....the difference is that the 105D adds the ability to use it as a DSD DAC over USB.....meaning--I've got DSD files on a computer, plugged up via USB, with something like Audiovana that will pass the DSD stream over USB, the 105D will play it. The 105 requires Audiovana to convert it to PCM used that way.

But, it plays DSD files themselves. From network share. From USB local drive. Just won't take a DSD stream from computer software. No biggie, IMO.

 

I have used USB in the front port of the 105D to stream DSD and it sounds great , now does it sound better than my physical LPs and SACDs .. IMO not yet but it is damn close, it still doesn't have that liquid type sound , but then again I don't have many DSD files I'm still a mostly physical guy lol

 

I connected my 105D directly to my amp today and it sounds excellent . The Parasound 2100 is a great sounding preamp but the 105D on it's own is that much better IMO. Hopefully in a week or so I'll have a pair of Wyred 4 Sound SX-500 mono-block amps that should be a nice upgrade over the Boston Acoustics A-7200 amp. Easily double the power and the SX-500s are fully balanced so I can utilize the balanced outputs of the 105D. It was very easy to setup a new "105D Pre" activity for my Harmony 688. I'm listening to Alison Krauss' Forget About It SACD and it sounds like Alison is singing right in my living room .

Bill

 

Yeah, I too found that everything sounded cleaner when I took my preamp out of the equation and went directly from my 105 to my power amp.

 

I totally agree . Oppo really added some nice features to the 105/105D such as preset turn on and maximum volume level settings. Both these settings are great and remove the chance of pushing play and having the volume at 100 ! Norah Jones' Feels Like Home APO SACD playing now .

Bill

 

Oh ya, I need too add the Oppo to my Harmony.

Thanks for the reminder!

 

I'm not looking to replace my Linn Unidisk SC (which sounds pretty fine and cost $6K)...rather to pick up a very good blu-ray player which also has very good sound and a good DAC. I have an ADL GT40 (DAC/ADC) and it is quite acceptable...would the BDP-105D provide more depth and fullness/warmth to the sound? The GT40 is a bit lean for my tastes (though very good for converting my LPs to digital at 24bit/96KHz). I have an all tube system: McIntosh C2200 and private design tube mono-block amplifiers with tube regulated power supplies.

As well, I have one concern: my equipment cabinet will only allow me to get about 2.5" above the Oppo and the manual recommends 4". There will be 5" on each side and pretty much open, front and back. Will this be adequate with the Oppo's passive cooling?

 

Below is an email that I just sent Oppo. Unfortunately my 105D has issues and maybe the reason it was a refurbished unit. I have no doubt Oppo will make it right .

Hello,

Actually the 105D is not working as it should unfortunately. I do not want to use Auto Play but want to use Auto Resume. The 105D is not working as my 103 does which I've had for over two years. I should be able to have Auto Resume on with Auto Play off and when the 105D is powered up it should not initiate playback till I hit play. Then when I hit play the disc should resume playback but only after hitting play. The 105D is acting as if both Auto Play and Auto Resume are on when Auto Play is off. I have the latest firmware on the 103 (same as the 105D) so there has to be an issue with the 105D. That is unless the 105D is configured differently than the 103. I unplugged the 105D several times to see if that would help but no change. The 105D actually froze up several times after doing this requiring the need to unplug it several more times.

I also have a noise from the 105D in the area of the transformer. The noise stops when I use Pure Audio and it doesn't matter if I have a disc in the player or not. I would like to get an RMA which I believe comes with a prepaid shipping label. I'm a bit disappointed as this is my fourth Oppo player and the first one that has had an issue. The 105D is a refurbished unit so maybe that is why it is having issues. Thank you for your time.

PS: I just powered off the player and powered it back on and the disc did not start on its own, I had to hit play and Auto Resume worked as intended. I powered it off and then back on to double check and the disc started playing on its own with Auto Play off. There is definitely something wrong with the 105D.

Take care, Bill

Bill

 

Beyond the Auto Play/Auto Resume and transformer noise issues, how did the player sound?
Was it a significant step up from the 103?

I'm finding my new amp lacking in that last little bit of detail and I'm wondering if adding the Oppo (to replcae my older Arcam and Denon players) will provide that.

 

Blair,

I feel that the 105D is a step up in overall SQ compared to the 103 but that is without doing a direct comparison. I'm inclined to return the 105D and stick with the 103. I haven't made up my mind yet but I might be going digital over analog. I'm looking closely at Emotiva's XMC-1 prepro. If I do that then I can use HDMI out of the 103 and use that DACs and analog input/output stage of the XMC-1. It's a thought .

Bill

 

Hi Bill,

As the Emotiva uses Burr Brown DACs it will definitely sound DIFFERENT than the ESS Sabre DAC's in your OPPO 105D.

You will have to decide on better or worse different!!

One bonus with the Emotiva is Dirac Room EQ but you are looking at a higher price point too!!

For M/C .........OPPO 103 into Emotiva at HDMI level all day long!!!

For Stereo.......That's the hard bit!!! I would expect the OPPO 105D at analog level to be very hard to beat.

How about OPPO 105D AND Emotiva........that would give you some options and cover pretty much everything.

It all really depends on how important that extra bit of stereo SQ is to you.

Cheers

 

Yes the chances of the sound being different between the XMC-1 and the 105D are definitely possible. So I'll give it further thought as to which direction to take. I listened to the 105D last night connected directly to my amp and it sounds excellent . So my thoughts are could the 103 and the XMC-1 sound as good for two channel music? That is a tough question as two channel music listening is a priority for me.

Below is a post from AVS and part of an email response to Oppo.

I'm in the process of further troubleshooting. I did a system reset and it appears to have taken care of the Auto Resume feature glitch. Now when I power up the 105D it no longer starts playing at the resumed point. I now have to hit play for Auto Resume to work. That's good.

As far as the noise from the 105D that's a different matter. What I did find was that when a disc is playing and the Home Menu is not on the 105D's display the noise stops. Stop the disc and the Home Menu is back on the display the noise resumes. I also found that with the Home Menu on the display (noise is there) and I adjust the analog volume with the volume value on the display the noise stops. If I stop adjusting the volume and the Home Menu is back on the display the noise resumes. I have every cable accept the power cable disconnected and the noise is still there. I plugged the 105D into a different outlet and a different circuit and the noise is still there. So it appears I'll be getting an RMA to return the 105D.

Bill

 

Provided you get your 105D back, and it's all better, I would expect it to outperform the 103/Emotiva combo for stereo listening.

I was using a quality stereo pre into actives and when I went direct with my 105 the result was clearly superior.

IME the SQ really benefitted from the much shorter signal path (due to one less component and a set of cables).

Cleaner and quieter allowing extra detail.

Of course you need to weigh up the practicality of hooking up direct and the expectation of the Emotiva to be a better unit for M/C work due to it's more extensive bass management and Dirac Room EQ.


Just out of interests sake......How much volume were you able to dial in on the OPPO when connected directly to your power amp?


Cheers

 

If I decide to stay with the 105D and return this one I'll request a different one. A member over at AVS looked at the specs of my amp and suggested I keep the volume of the 105D below 85 so that's the highest I've gone. The volume is plenty loud enough and sounds excellent . I've been looking for a used Wyred 4 Sound STP-SE preamp to try with the 105D and the W4S SX-500 amps that should arrive this week. If I decide to stick with a direct to the amp setup I can get creative with the SX-500s. I can run balanced out of the 105D to the SX-500s and use RCAs out of my Denon 4311 to the RCA input of the SX-500s. Then just use the input select switch to choose between balanced and RCA. That way I can have a two channel setup and a multichannel setup without swapping out cables .

Bill

 

Bump...anybody with some thoughts on my questions?

 

Looking for some help or advice from the hive-mind here (hopefully including @SamS).

The Problem:
Periodic digital ticks/pops when streaming music from my Squeezebox Touch to the Oppo BDP-105, via digital coax connection.

My Setup:
2009 Apple iMac with Logitech Media Server-->wireless-->Airport Extreme latest model-->ethernet-->SB Touch-->coax-->Oppo

What I have tried:

• Hacking SB Touch to output via USB port. Worked, but same occasional digital ticks and pops.
• Using optical connection. Still some ticks and pops, but not as many and not as loud IIRC.
• Upgrading coax cable: No difference that I can tell (maybe even slight more frequent ticks and pops?)

What I have not tried:

• Resetting the Oppo
• Upgrading the firmware on the Oppo
• Installing upgraded optical cable (purchased but not tried yet)

Possible Causes of the Problem - Seeking Opinions on The Likelihood of Each of These:

• Oppo DAC just doesn't play nice with SB Touch
• Oppo DAC doesn't play nice but would work better with firmware update (haven't updated firmware since I got the Oppo several months ago)
• iMac is 6 yrs old and combo of its Core2Duo CPU and conventional spinning hard drive creates throughput problems *
• Wireless connection between iMac and Airport Extreme, while good, is causing the glitches
• Major static electricity because of winter/dry house etc - could this impact the signal over coax since coax is susceptible to electrical issues (unlike optical)?

(* I've started to suspect this third possibility, of the iMac, because the ticks and pops seem to come and go at random intervals. Makes me wonder if the problem is related to other apps/processes bogging down the iMac's hard drive from time to time.)

Given how long in the tooth my iMac is getting, and that my computer-use habits have changed since 2009, I'm thinking of getting a Mac mini - it would have a faster CPU, I could connect directly to the Oppo's DAC via USB, and I could use a Mac app like JRiver or Audirvana to play high-res music directly to the Oppo. Heck, I could even use iTunes itself, with the Mac's audio output set to 24/96.

But the mini probably wouldn't have a faster hard drive than the iMac, and I don't really feel like spending the money for a terabyte's worth of SSD storage for all my music files.

And I don't want to invest in a mini, set it all up, move my music library to it, set up remote administration so I can run it headless - only to have the same $%#^& ticks and pops after all that.

I would be grateful for any advice or guidance folks can provide.

 

I don't have your setup, but it doesn't take a lot of horsepower to play music. I was recently using an 08 iMac Core2Duo to an outboard DAC, never a problem. Only if your hard drive is nearly full would you possibly see any lag or dropout. Nonetheless, 6 years is fairly elderly for a HDD. If you experience other problems as well, could be that.

I'd first suspect wireless. Which I also don't have. And will never have.

 

1. Update OPPO firmware
2. Do a full device reset on the OPPO
3. Use a wired connection

After these 3 steps, I think there is a 95% chance the pops will be gone.

 

Thanks @SamS and @gd0 - appreciate the quick replies. Based on your comments, it looks like it's probably a wireless issue. It's strange since my Airport Extreme is the latest model, not only with faster networking, but with more robust networking as well. I'd been hoping to avoid a wired connection, simply because my iMac is in the next room, so I'm looking at about a 20-25 foot run of ethernet cable.

Currently I have a USB hard drive hooked up to the 105, playing the same high-res files and - no surprise - there are zero digital glitches this way. (I also wanted to test the USB hard drive with the SB Touch, but I only have bus-powered drives and the Touch won't power them.)

Not too long ago, I added another, slightly older Airport Extreme to my home network to improve coverage in my kitchen. I'm not sure, but now I'm wondering if the digital glitches began - or at least got worse - when I added that to the network. I'll experiment with powering it down and seeing if that makes a difference.

Sam, two final questions for you - (1) The 105 will do gapless ALAC playback from a locally connected USB device, yes? (2) When playing from the USB hard drive, the Oppo is not displaying album cover art. Is that because my files are ALAC files? My Oppo does not have its wi-fi dongle connected, so it can't query CDDB, but I thought if the artwork is embedded in the file, it will display it.

 

I sent the 105D back to Oppo yesterday. I was going to do a refund but I'm going to see if the Oppo Techs can duplicate the noise I was hearing and make repairs to correct it. I just found the SQ of the 105D to be excellent especially when connected directly to my amp. I emailed Oppo earlier today and they responded which is pretty amazing on a Sunday .

Bill

 

Wifi can be impacted by many gremlins, even if your router is robust.

The OPPO players cannot do gapless ALAC AFAIK. It should display embedded cover art, but that might be impacted by file type, or other tagging anomalies.

 

Yes it took a neighbour to get his boiler serviced to cure mine!

 

Lately, my player abruptly stops playing the SACD layer of hybrid SACDs. The latest one was an Analogue Productions mono SACD of Hank Mobley's "Mobley's Message" during the middle of the last track. The whole machine then freezes up and the only way to get it to respond to anything is to get up and press the power button on the front face. No other buttons respond.

I bought this in April of 2013 so it's (barely) under warranty.