Oppo Sonica DAC with flagship ESS ES9038PRO SABRE DAC

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Billy Budapest, Aug 31, 2016.

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  1. Ric Schultz

    Ric Schultz New Member

    Location:
    Soquel, CA USA
    Here is some info on Oppo and ESS DACs. The 105 uses an 8 channel ESS 9018 DAC but only uses one DAC channel for each of the coax and xlr outputs on the analog outs. The other two DACs inside the ESS9018 are used for the headphone amp. The new Sonica DAC does not have a headphone amp. It will use all 4 of the DACs on each channel in parallel for stereo outs.....hopefully! The DAC chip in the Sonica is the brand new 9038....top of the line new ESS DAC. The only DAC that I know currently using it is the $9000 Ayre DAC just released. There is also a brand new ESS9028 chip which is a direct replacement for the 9018 (9038 requires new circuit board, etc.) and Resonessence has now upgraded their Mirus DAC to a Mirus Pro DAC using these 9028s. They don't measure any better than the older 9018 but are suppose to sound better. The 9038 is suppose to sound even better. Resonessence is charging $1000 to upgrade your Mirus to a Mirus pro with the new DAC chips. I imagine the cost difference between using two 9018s and two 9028s is probably about $10........$990 profit seems about right!???!!! A modded 105 sounds way better than a stock 105. However, a modded Gustard X20DAC running out of the digital out of the Oppo sounds mucho better (There is a review of someone that has a modded 105 and the modded Gustard on Audiogon.....if you search). So, improving a stock 105 is not difficult. I imagine a stock Sonica DAC used with a 105 will be a little better than using the 105 by itself. A modded Sonica DAC could be killer. For the most advanced mods I imagine a separate box would be used for the raw supplies giving more room inside the unit for tweaking. This should be a killer product with a great DAC and streaming capabilities (from the pic showing the rear it looks like it has an analog input too!!!). But don't expect the stock Sonica to be anything like a modded one or the $9000 Ayre unit. There is so much to making great sound besides a DAC chip.....every single thing you do makes a sonic difference (improvement or not).
     
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  2. bmoura

    bmoura Senior Member

    Location:
    Redwood City, CA
    Yes, it's a Stereo DAC.
     
  3. tomd

    tomd Senior Member

    Location:
    Brighton,Colorado
    Ric-Do You/Would you plan on offering a mod package for the Oppo Sonica down the road? You modded my Oppo BDP-105 (everything but the linear power supply swap) and it sounds killer!
     
  4. Ric Schultz

    Ric Schultz New Member

    Location:
    Soquel, CA USA
    Yes, I will have one as soon as they come out and will be working up mods on it. I would expect this to sound much better than the modded Oppo 105. Oppo added a tiny bit on their website about it. They will be showing it at Rocky Mountain.
     
  5. tomd

    tomd Senior Member

    Location:
    Brighton,Colorado
    Was really sold on getting the Sonica Dac but now thinking of waiting to see what the UDP-205 at $1100 will offer up when it it is released early next year-will it be a better way to go with transport
    improvements over the BDP-105 (which I have now) or be more compromised due to some of the 9038's DAC channels being devoted to a headphone amp as you mentioned the 105 was?
     
  6. Ric Schultz

    Ric Schultz New Member

    Location:
    Soquel, CA USA
    Where did you see a price on the 205? Hard to know what capabilities it will have until it is modded to the same level as the DAC......which may be impossible do to space limitations via the transport. My more advanced mod ideas on the Sonica have a separate power supply box with two huge trannies in it and all basic DC filtering (exotic AC conditioning could be added here as well, not enough room in a player for that).....then a hardwired power supply cable feeding the Sonica that now has much more room inside to get really tweaky. I cannot imagine you could do that with the 205.......and then you have the switching power supply and its noise in the 205?, extra clocks radiating, etc. etc. I would put my bet on the Sonica DAC for sound but if you need a transport and play a lot of SACDs then maybe the 205 would be a nice compromise.....just guessing here.
     
  7. cordobaman

    cordobaman Rich Corinthian Leather

    Location:
    Erie, PA USA
    I emailed OPPO to get a few questions answered now that the RMAF is over.

    "Our upcoming products are still, unfortunately, deep in development, which is why we have not updated the Sonica Grand, Sonica DAC, and UDP-203 websites. Once we are closer to release, we will be updating our website to contain all the features and specifications of these products.

    - Availability date and price?
    1. The Sonica DAC will be released ideally in December. The price should be $799.00.

    - Will it indeed stream DSD files gapless over ethernet from a networked PC/NAS?
    2. The Sonic DAC will not support gapless playback out of box. This is something that we hope we can add in a future firmware release in the future.

    - Capability with Tidal, Pandora, MQA, other?
    3. The unit will support Tidal through the Sonica application and Airplay for any other streaming services. Additional services will be added to the Sonica application in the future. MQA may be added to future firmware, but we are only in the discussion phase with Meridian at the moment.

    - Will it be Roon ready?
    4. Roon may be added in the future but is not a part of the product at launch.

    - Is the volume control mechanical (pot) or digital?
    5. The control is purely digital.

    - Will the balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA outputs work simultaneously?
    6. Yes, just like the HA-1, all outputs are available simultaneously.

    - Is the internal power supply switching or linear?
    7. The internal power supply is switching.

    Best Regards,

    Customer Service
    OPPO Digital, Inc."
     
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  8. wolfram

    wolfram Slave to the rhythm

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    :shake:
     
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  9. Billy Budapest

    Billy Budapest Forum "Member" Thread Starter

    No use shaking your head when the product isn't even out yet. That email from Oppo indicates that gapless support is a firmware upgrade away. If you have a Sonica speaker, you know that firmware updates show up as a pop-up window in the Sonica app when they are available, and all you do is click a button on your phone to install. Easy.
     
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  10. Robert van Diggele

    Robert van Diggele Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Netherlands
    makes you wonder if the people who develop these kind of products actually use them in real life. No gapless is pretty annoying and with all the questions Oppo got about this basic feature you would think they wanted to have this done in a proper way.
     
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  11. wolfram

    wolfram Slave to the rhythm

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    I know how easy updates for Oppo products are and that they continually work on improving them. But that this new DAC can't handle gapless out of the box makes me very wary after seeing how they couldn't solve the problem for the 105 in all this time. I would have expected them to adress it right from the start in their hardware, since that's where the problem mostly seems to lie (as far as I understand it).
     
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  12. Ecki

    Ecki Forum Resident

    - Will it have an outstanding analogue (stereo) output stage? Significantly better than those of current universal disc players?
    8. YES => i'll order asap
    8. NO => thank you for your time
     
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  13. RocketUSA

    RocketUSA Forum Resident

    Does anyone know if the Sonica DAC/player software will handle SACD.ISOs, or just separate files only?
     
  14. JediJoker

    JediJoker Audio Engineer/Enthusiast

    Location:
    Portland, OR, USA
    If it's anything like Oppo's latest players, DSF/DFF files only. You can use DLNA to push DSD from an SACD ISO.
     
  15. RocketUSA

    RocketUSA Forum Resident

    Could you explain how? I'm assuming that means playing the SACD.ISO on something else and streaming it to the Sonica DAC via DLNA?
     
  16. JediJoker

    JediJoker Audio Engineer/Enthusiast

    Location:
    Portland, OR, USA
    Precisely. It can be done from JRiver on a computer, for instance. Presumably, it would also work over a direct USB connection. I believe the BDP-105 can handle SACD ISOs in this way.
     
  17. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    My Oppo 103 doesn't actually require DLNA, it just has the native ability to read from file shares. Perhaps a better way to say this is you don't actually need to be running a DLNA server, just have network shares set up. I'd also suspect JJ is correct that whatever it reads from the network it can read from a USB drive, but sometimes this is inexplicably not the case.
     
  18. JediJoker

    JediJoker Audio Engineer/Enthusiast

    Location:
    Portland, OR, USA
    No, the 103/105 cannot read SACD ISOs on network shares, no more than it can from local storage. It requires use of the player as a DLNA renderer, with something that can play the ISO as native DSD pushing it out as such via DLNA over a network.
     
  19. mongo

    mongo Senior Member

    Got a pre-order link for the Sonica DAC to from Oppo.
    Pretty positive I was be getting this to pair with my 105.

    I really do not get the deal with Oppo players being able to play SACD .iso files, but it comes up over and over on this forum and is treated like some critical feature.
    Nowhere else in the digital world is any digital device expected to natively play\open an iso file of any kind.
    That's not the intent of the file format. Clue up and get over it.
    Once you have the iso it's simple matter to bust the iso into .dsf files.
    I treat the .iso files as backups and use other software for images and track listings.
     
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  20. Kal Rubinson

    Kal Rubinson Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Yes. I would consider just batch converting the ISOs to DSFs with ISO2DSD or equivalent app.
     
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  21. mongo

    mongo Senior Member

    Smart man.
     
  22. Linger63

    Linger63 Forum Resident

    Location:
    AUSTRALIA
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2017
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  23. wgb113

    wgb113 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chester County, PA
    Wish this were an HA-3 or HA-1SE as opposed to DAC/preamp only. I wonder if this means they'll put out a separate desktop headphone amp?
     
  24. mongo

    mongo Senior Member

    Either I'm not understanding the Sonica spec sheet or the response from Oppo above is incorrect but the spec sheet states that "The toroidal linear power supply"
    where above it states that the power supply is switch mode. :confused:
     
  25. Linger63

    Linger63 Forum Resident

    Location:
    AUSTRALIA
    Yeah.......I noticed that bit too!!! :agree:.............

    "Sonica DAC’s audio circuitry is supplied with a linear power regulator drawing from a massive toroidal power transformer"

    Hopefully someone smarter than me (not hard at all) might be able to tell just by looking at the internal view pic. :)
     
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2017
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