Since it's a Sony installer item listed under their pro gear you might have to find an AV and sound installation specialist? Easy to check if Richer or Seven Oaks etc have it via their web sites. There are some listed on Ebay from UK and Germany.
For those of us who snoozed and missed out on the last round of Oppos, the Sony 1100ES looks like a reasonable substitute in terms of price and performance. Anyone know if its lack of HDR10+ is going to be addressed via a firmware update, though?
WAY not cheap. I still use the ESS Saber DAC in my Peachtree iNova, that I was using years ago as my main system DAC. I believe that it is the same DAC that Oppo used in their earlier '95 player.
How are you set up for true multichannel surround sound? I have read many posts of yours about multiple sets of stereo speakers but don't recall anything about true multichannel mixes.
I purchased my OPPO 205 exclusively to enjoy multi-channel and I am not disappointed. I have discovered I can enjoy multi-channel FLAC downloads gaplessly via thumb drive, as well as 5.1 SACD's. Also, the OPPO has a multi-channel bass management program, which I greatly appreciate, since my 20 year old Sony TA-P9000es Multi-channel Analog Preamplifier paired to the OPPO does not have ideal bass management. In addition, I have a usb connection from my laptop to the OPPO for iTunes, which gets me native pleasure from 24/192 downloads I have in the Library. Over all, it's just awesome for stereo and multi-channel music, no matter where or how the digital music is stored. It all sounds great; but, most of all, I am now warming up to multi-channel for its extra breadth and depth than stereo can deliver.
My system is set up for stereo and 5.1 surround HT. I don't own any SACD's. If I did, I would have one of the "05" series of Oppo's. I either play regular CD's or DVD's and Blu-ray disks. With the CD's, the oppo is used only as a transport to the DAC inside of the Peachtree iNova. For DVD's and Blu-ray surround sound program material, the digital information is routed into the 4k surround sound processor via an HDMI cable. Plus, the 203 version of the Oppo is the same height as my previous '93 and fits perfectly under the 65" curved screen 4k TV, where the '05 versions are 2" taller. While the front mains are form the Polk LSiM line, I still use the larger canter channel from their RTi line because I discovered that I don't have the vertical space necessary for the center channel from the LSiM line (which I do have). I do use tower speakers for the rear speakers, which are the Boston Acoustic M-350's. I make it a point to buy matching center channel speakers for my tower speakers, so that I can set any of them up in a HT surround sound environment. While I don't have specific multi-channel surround sound recordings, except for movies, I do use the rear system for both HT and stereo. The power amp that powers the rears has two separate inputs os I use one with the surround sound processor and the other set of inputs come off of the Peachtree iNova. This does provide an effective immersive surround sound listening experience with all of the 2-channel sources. When I have the Altec A7's on, the front mains are on my left and the rear channels are on my right, from my other listening position, giving a semi-circular speaker arrangement of greater than 200°, so it also give the feeling of a surround sound listening environment. The volume levels of all three independent power amplifiers are independently adjustable, so I can balance out the sound to my liking.
That it does. You will notice that I did not use the them "expensive" in my post. Opting instead for:
Ah.... an Emotiva and OPPO man! I like this! You have a nice setup there dude! What dac chip does your dac employ? Beave
A setup like that deserves some quality multichannel music mixes. That is like owning a Ferrari and just driving it around the neighborhood...
hi all! I use oppo 103d with a bryston bda-3 dac connected hdmi nordost blue heaven to my 2 way stystem. the other hdmi vodka goes to my pioneer elite sc-07 for movies. since oppo transport is used by many companies I figured upgrade the dac and see, wow major difference in all aspects.it plays sacd which was the reason I made this match. great stuff!
The Direct Stream is another DAC that is voiced to fulfill the biases of its designers. Its firmware (really, more than firmware, it is the code that the FPGA runs that actually implements the DAC functions) is under constant development and the designer is creative and talented. In the end, though, their goal does not seem to be transparency and the DAC hardware does not measure nearly as well as the Oppo 205 (and Sonica DAC with identical hardware) which basically are at the current limit right now for what can be measured. Why all this talk from me about measurements? We reached the level of diminishing returns in terms of sound quality a while ago. DACs do not sound that different from each other unless they are poorly engineered or are doing something wrong, or are built by their designers to reflect their particular sonic biases. Oppo has gone a completely different route and has designed their board layouts to extract the maximum performance that is possible from the industry leading ESS9038 chip, paying attention to grounding and thermal noise performance and carefully designing the analog output stages, among other things. This has resulted in designs that in addition to sounding transparent to the source, offer as close to mathematically ideal performance as currently possible. Do measurements matter in terms of sound quality? At this level, not really, but if you want the numbers to back up what we hear as transparency and to prove the solidity of the engineering, Oppo certainly does that.
Thanks Beav! I like Emotiva gear, I would never part with my XPA-2 (Generation 1) 250-Watt power amplifier that I bought during one of their original sales at a 15% off price of $690. As to the DAC chip in the iNova: "The heart of the iNova is the ESS ES9016, 32 bit, 24/192 Sabre32 Ultra DAC. It's specialized for computers or other sources that often deliver high levels of timing errors. Using the iNova with your current CD or DVD player will improve it, with higher resolution and added dynamic range." I did check and found out that the Oppo BDP-95 uses the ES9018. S&G
Something that I would like to try on the next go-around. The system was assembled to play the music that I do own or stream. But the multiple power amps and speakers provide an excellent surround sound environment.
RE the PS Audio Direct Stream, here are measurements from Audio Science Review: Review and Measurements of PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream DAC Folks should enjoy what they enjoy, and measurements certainly are not the whole story - but measurements are not totally divorced from the reality of what we hear, and this unit measures appallingly badly even for a low-priced unit, to say nothing of a unit that sells for $6,000+.
Gobsmacked and it apparently doesn't even sound that great. I've seen these being sold at a big discount by a dealer. Perhaps this is why. I know this guy is critical but none of the measurements appear very good.
Except for the jitter rejection which is phenomenal. The reviewer doesn’t seem to fault the digital decoding scheme (upsampling everything to DSD) for the poor measurements, but rather the use of a transformer to act as a low pass filter to remove all the ultrasonic noise from the DSD signal.
I have an Oppo UDP-205 and a PS Audio DirectStream DAC. The Oppo is a great machine and really sounds fantastic for the original manufacturer's price. The DirectStream DAC is the very best sounding of its type I've ever heard--if I could only have one system I'd have the DirectStream in it. Measurements are not the whole story for me--I use single-ended amps and tubed preamps and tube EQ components and I'm sure they don't measure as well as many amps and components I'd rather not listen to. There's a whole thread about the ASR site on the PS Audio forum that is an interesting read whichever side of the measurement fence one is on.
I keep the faith that Oppo returns due Scalpers are re-selling the 205 for 2 or 3 times the original price.
Frankly his overall comments surprised me since I've seen great reviews of this DAC combined with the matching transport. I would say that with digital rather more than valve amps measurements are more closely related to sound. It is rather expensive in the UK, though cheaper than some other boutique brands made here.
I glanced at his site and it's not for me. In this case I have the transport and DAC combo and it's ended my search for such things, does SACD too. Very musical! Just as with my tube amps when they make that musical connection I don't care about measurements. I just spin disc after disc.
I have the 1000es. Excellent video and audio. Every bit as good as my Oppo 83se which is supposed to be geared towards audio.
Somewhat related to this topic, I just updated my iPhone to 13.2 and the app for my Sonica DAC no longer allows for remote control functionality so that I cannot change the input selector. Submitted a tech support request this morning, will see if they still have folks who can look at updating the mobile app. Otherwise, I do happen to have the aftermarket remote control...others who use this device might want to be careful when updating their devices. Answer if they will fix this: Unfortunately we do not know at this point as there hasn't been any changes to the app and the only changed that caused the issue is a new iOS version.
From which sources? Do you have automatic updates enabled on your Oppo? FWIW: I'm deliberately running firmware which is several years old on my 103, so if a new firmware update were to break something, I would be unaware of it.
