I'm never going to be surprised at an Oppo excelling at everything it does. The HD Blu-ray player is still the best HD player made and it has not been available for a long time. People pay outrageous prices for things like Magnetar trying to achieve the Oppo quality and get nothing but an average player in a fancy case. We lost a lot when Oppo left the player market.
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OPPO BDP-95 Review (Blu-ray/DVD/SACD/CD Player)
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MusicLover2112
Member
Yep. Still use a BDP-103D for 3D Blu-rays and a UDP-205 for my CD/SACD/DVD-Audio/Blu-ray music collection.
I’m pretty sure Reavon did, but I think they’ve folded too, although there’s still a website.
phoenixdogfan
Major Contributor
The legend. For a while there, these guys were selling at multi-kilobuck mark ups. Most hilariously, there grew up a cottage industry to 'improve" their sound by modding them with tube buffers. If you want, you can probably check Positive Feedback's index of reviews or something like their "Harvey 'Gizmo' Rosenberg" awards and find one of their reviewers bloviating about all the "texture" that tube stage added to the analytical "sharpness" of the stock BD-95.
Anyway, a really nice unit if you still want to spin those silver disks, maybe the best if you can find it somewhere at a sane price.
Anyway, a really nice unit if you still want to spin those silver disks, maybe the best if you can find it somewhere at a sane price.
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Very nice review, BUT....
2. You are now, of course, obligated to test the other "famous" OPPO players, e.g., the 93, 103, 103D, 105, 105D, UDP-203, 205
There's also the less famous $289 Oppo BDP-80 Blu-ray player - sort of a 'LaSalle' to the higher-priced 'Cadillac' in the Oppo line-up.
Oppo Announces Inexpensive, Full-Function BDP-80 Universal/Blu-ray Player
At the time of its release in Fall of 2009, Oppo Digital’s award-winning BDP-83 ($499) was, hands down, the world’s most affordable, full-featured
www.theabsolutesound.com
As I recall, Oppo discontinued the BDP-80 within a year of its introduction, saying they could no longer source a key part.
My sample BDP-80 from 2010 sees regular use.
PristineSound
Major Contributor
I once own this player, a modified version. The original had a fan that generated a lot of noise. The fan was replaced, with a low noise fan and the top cover was modified with a mesh top.
I sold it because I ended up with the BDP-105D.
I sold it because I ended up with the BDP-105D.
Robin L
Master Contributor
Yes, he did. However, he also measured the Oppo UPD 205, though in this case it was just for its functions as a DAC, which it passed with flying colors:
Happy to see a qualified review and a qualified reviewer as well.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #33
I’ll give it a try
JSmith
Master Contributor
Absolutely, a damn shame... great to see this tested, thanks. I still have an old BDP-83, but the blue laser has gone so CD and DVD only... I may get around to replacing the laser assembly one day.
JSmith
This makes me regret selling the one I had for about a year. Found it at a thrift shop for about $90, IIRC.
It was glitchy and had some issues, and was also cosmetically rough.
I sent it to Oppo and for their service fee, they not only completely fixed it, but put a brand new case on it as well.
Ended up selling it in 2020 as I just didn't use it very much.
It was glitchy and had some issues, and was also cosmetically rough.
I sent it to Oppo and for their service fee, they not only completely fixed it, but put a brand new case on it as well.
Ended up selling it in 2020 as I just didn't use it very much.
contact Oppo Digital support [ https://www.oppodigital.com/ ]; I believe they're still doing repair work, depending on parts availability.
Yes, I've seen tube modded Oppo Blu-Ray players, mostly the 105, on US Audiomart for outrageous prices. Such a stupid thing to do to an already great piece of audio gear.
And some were proposing upgrades, as I've seen. Upgrade what?
I saw tube mods
Thanks for the review, I currently use an Oppo BDP-93. Have had a few Oppos, sadly had to sell my 105 because I needed the money. All of them have sounded great, though. Plus the fact that Oppo is still doing repairs on these is so awesome. It is such a bummer they stopped making them. Any of their Blu-Ray players would be my default recommendation for anyone wanting an "audiophile" cd player.
Actually, they did a lot more. Harman put it through extensive internal testing and fed back all the bugs to Oppo. Oppo fixed those and Harman then proceeded to put a new enclosure around it. And sell it through high margin dealers which demand 45%. Oppo in sharp contrast, only offered a few dollars to few dealers who carried it (we were one of them). The negative publicity killed the Lexicon version, not realizing the back story and economics of the business. Few high end companies could produce their own players and not being able to clone the Oppo meant the end of that from high-end companies.
So did you!
Now that I am thinking about that, let me take the opportunity to make an observation about the comparison between the test signals at 1 kHz @ -16 dBFS on CD and -16 dB SA-CD on SA-CD.
Why I always insist to write '-16 dB SA-CD' instead of '-16 dBFS' is not only a case of pedantry, but because there is a subtlety concerning levels in the SA-CD format and one must be aware of it.
Annex D, point D.2 of the 'Super Audio CD System Description, Part 2, Audio Specification', Version 2.0 (called the 'Scarlet Book'), defines the 0 dB SA-CD as the peak amplitude of a sine wave at 50% modulation index of the DSD signal. That means that the 0 dB level on an SA-CD is not the absolute maximum digital level, contrary to what happen in the PCM world, where there can be no level above 0 dBFS because, by definition, 0 dBFS is the biggest (or smallest) usable number in a given PCM signal.
The important consequence of that fact is that even when analogue levels at the output of a DAC or a digital player is the same (ie perfectly aligned) when said devices reproduce a PCM signal at 0 dBFS or a DSD signal at 0 dB SA-CD, one must always keep in mind that DSD can go higher than that.
By how much is a matter of standardization. The above mentioned Annex D, point D3.1 and 3.2, of the Scarlet Book acknowledges short term peak levels of +3.1 dB SA-CD over 28 consecutive DSD samples and long term peak levels calculated after a peak hold with slow down having a 258 ms time constant followed by a low-pass filter having a 64 ms time constant of +1.51 dB SA-CD. But even the standard set in the Scarlet Book is not at the maximum theoretical DSD level of 100% modulation index which, obviously, is 6 dB higher than 0 dB SA-CD.
This complex state of affair is the reason why when conversion (or more precisely decimation) of a DSD stream to PCM is done, the latter must usually accommodates 6 dB of headroom. That means that 0 dB SA-CD is set to equal -6 dBFS. Without that alignment, it is possible to clip the signal in the PCM domain when the DSD peak level signal exceeds 0 dB SA-CD. It is possible to dispense with this attenuation only if the DSD signal never goes above 0 dB SA-CD.
The best illustration of that necessity I know of is this graph I borrow from the datasheet of the NPC SM5819 DSD to PCM converter chip (comments in red are mine):
Of course, it is possible to optimize the alignment between a known DSD signal and the decimated PCM signal by incorporating less than 6 dB of headroom if it's feasible, but that oviously complicates things a bit.
Why I think all that I just wrote about is relevant when comparing the performance of a digital players in PCM and DSD mode is because the reference level to which the performance metrics is measured is never fully comparable in the two modes. A qualification about levels must always be kept in mind.
For instance, I have noticed on many datasheets of dual purpose DAC chips that there usually is a somewhat 3 dB discrepancy of performance metrics in dynamic range or SNR between the PCM mode and the DSD mode to the detriment of the second. But if we look at the conditions a little more carefully, we often realize (though not always) that this difference is just the consequence of differences of the reference digital levels between the two modes of operation.
Moreover, one must always be sure that there is sufficient analogue headroom after conversion of DSD signals to take care of possible peak signal levels way above 0 dB SA-CD in order not to clip any analogue stage. Especially since some SA-CDs have escaped the checks at the pressing plants to rule out some over-modulated SA-CD masters. The most famous example of over-modulated SA-CD is the 1999 issue of the Michael Jackson's Thiller album (and probably the reissues of it from the same master). I can add to this one another case I personally encountered : the multichannel area (I didn't check the stereo area) of the 2006 reissue of the opera Turandot in the RCA Living Stereo collection.
At least, it is my understanding of things, but I can be mistaken or overly cautious!
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Hello Florent,
Thank you for this excellent review which also forces you to increase the number of tests. The results are impressive. It seems to me that in terms of power supply and analog output, this player is a reference. The 3DC signal measured on the analog outputs is astounding as the trace is perfect. I never thought I would see this one day.This makes me want to look for a used Oppo.
Thank you for this excellent review which also forces you to increase the number of tests. The results are impressive. It seems to me that in terms of power supply and analog output, this player is a reference. The 3DC signal measured on the analog outputs is astounding as the trace is perfect. I never thought I would see this one day.This makes me want to look for a used Oppo.
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