Agreed, Reason may the the last one standing. I feel fortunate to have grabbed one of the last reasonably priced Yamaha blu ray players that handles SACD, of which Accessories4Less claims to have one refurb remaining. YAMAHA BD-S681 Blu-Ray Player NEW It's not as good as an Oppo, but for the price it works very well.
OK... my mistake. I must admit I'm a bit in the dark about the concept of SACD ISOs. I've ripped most of my SACDs using a 103 and the DSF files play fine.
Just saw this new listing on Facebook, Audio Shop and Swap. It's the first item on the page. Oppo UDP-205 universal player for $750. Log into Facebook | Facebook
People see “Oppo Electronics” and incorrectly think it is the same thing as “Oppo Digital.” You can’t blame them, even though it has been explained ad nauseam on this forum. Maybe they should ask our friends in the Bay Area who were laid off when Oppo Digital folded why they weren’t just transferred to China to work for the cellphone company.
I'm not on facebook, so can't see it, but it sounds too good to be true. If it is true, I'm sure it's gone already...
It’s been a long time since I’ve come here, sad in a way that it was such an exciting community when The 203 and 205 were current. My have things not changed for the better. Even the stereo manufacturer’s seem stuck in Nothing. Sad sad sad. But I’m still buying Blu Ray movies and our OPPO 103 is just as solid as a rock! I haven’t even checked in years what their players are going for online. Maybe I’ll do that now. Take care everyone. beave
I was playing CDs, HDCDs and some high res files last night on my Modwright 105D. It sounded wonderful. Working great too! This is what's left for me. Use it enjoy it, and hope nothing goes wrong. I don't play my Oppo's too much so those should be my final Universal players.
Still use my Oppo 105 for SACDs and the occasional DVD audio. Awesomeness. Oppo 205 used for 4K Blu Ray , Blu Ray , occasional DVD and SACDs mostly. Two diff systems and the Oppos still run wonderfully. I will use them till they go out. Hopefully not for awhile yet. They have been rock solid !!
I still use my 95. I'm low income, I hope when the 95 dies, there are still used 205's left. My 95 is also region free, & plays iso's, which the newer models don't. There are still region free mods, but they've gone from $19 to $150.
Yes, this is hardly a poor person's passion (I refuse to use the word hobby). And be warned that you'd be very hard pressed to find a "used" 205 going for under $2K; some are over $4K. Check online and see. Luckily, we Oppo owners are still blessed with excellent-and affordable- factory service, so I'd hold tight to your 95. Two years ago when my 95 started failing to read pristine surface quality DVDs and BDs from my collection I shipped to them. They replaced the entire transport and did a general check up. If anything, parts and labor were more reasonable than shipping. The player has worked superbly ever since. OPPO Digital - Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc Players
If it's a matter of desiring a CRT screen's typical 4:3 aspect ratio along with it's OLED quality contrast ratio and gray scale range, I've been doing one better than that for years: Petitioning all OLED TV brands to issue a ~ 48" 1080p 4:3 OLED display, at least for the not so tiny niche market of vintage movie/TV show collectors, photographers and film makers who would definitely jump on it. No luck, of course.
No, all BD player brands would get hit by the BD Assn goon squad, as I think Oppo once may have, if they accidentally or otherwise designed players that supported BD ISOs. So I love saying this: JRiver to the rescue! With AnyDVD HD or the like running in the background JRiver plays anything, and with flawless DTS-MA support for use with a stereo or multichannel DAC. Yes, you may have to use keyboard commands and/or mouse clicks, but there are learning remotes that will give you all basic BD player functionality, and even zoom control. SilentPC and Steiger Dynamics build superb HTPCs to order. But unless you're needing to do advanced DVD or BD upscaling using madVR software, practically any pc or even many laptops (with an internal or external BD drive), a wireless keyboard/mouse and a decent standalone DAC can actually give you more than most any BD player, albeit with a bit less remote friendliness. So as long as some decent brand keeps make BD drives, your optical disc collection shouldn't ever be gathering much dust.
I have a 205 that I hardly ever play discs on since I ripped everything onto an external hard drive. Do you think my 205 will continue to play my files forever since I rarely use the disc transport?
As a someone that does product development for a living... every new product feature basically has to meet an ROI evaluation aka business case, in order to get brought to market. Basically - product development cost + marketing cost + BOM must be less than expected revenue forecast. Else, it doesn't come to market.
Well, there's Forever and then there's forever like the Pyramids in Giza. But I'd say that depending on the life of any rubber belt that may or not be used, the transport will likely have a longer life span than average in your case. However, even non-mechanical parts aren't forever. Discrete transistors and ICs might last decades. But resistors, inductors and more so capacitors (especially the aluminum electrolytic) do fail or go too far out of tolerance, though usually after a great while-but not always, as nothing's perfect. And that's so even if you packed away the 205 and went for something like JRiver.
I've had 2 good experiences with Oppo repair also. (UPS shipping is another story; USE FED EX!) Yes, even if I found an underpriced 205 I'd keep the 95 for ISO's. For anyone who doesn't know, the difference between 03' & 05's is the 05's have MUCH better audio. I've also said this before, but for the amount used 205's are actually selling (real sales, not just asking price) Oppo the parent company should have just doubled the price. If I had $2500 for a new 205 it would consider that more than fair. The actual retail on the 95, 105 & 205 is probably the best audio bargain ever; + all the video functionality was basically thrown in for free.
The ISO playback on early 95's was intentional; Oppo was threatened with having their license pulled if they didn't remove it. It requires a 95 with firmware no newer then 95-61-1219. Unfortunately, Oppo firmware will not revert to an earlier version. On the downside the HDMI 2.1 output of the 95 is not totally compatable with the 3.x HDMI input of recent TV's (I found this out the hard way. And yes, the Oppo dac's are only so so, but the price was amazing. Well mastered 88/24 & higher on my $800 95 sounds better than cd on my $3200 Esoteric/Illuminati/PS Audio cd rig. CD sounds better on th Esoteric/PS Audio set up than on the the Oppo.
As long as the electronics don't go bad. It's probably not a good idea to leave it powered down for a long period of time; that's been known to fry capacitors when they power back up.
............................................the difference between 03' & 05's is the 05's have MUCH better analog audio outputs.
Agree. It's my all time fav piece of equipment. It bought it new in late 2011. I so wish some company would release a similar unit. When they did the last batch of 205's I didn't have the money. I did about 2 months later........ sigh. I'm not sure about video, but audio advantages to the 205 include dsd/dsf & gapless flac audio.
