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Charge $5 for a download & I may bite. $25+? Please.
The labels have not passed any savings to the buyers. They are charging roughly the same price as SACD without any of the packaging or production costs.
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Post by Chris April 12, 2014 (12 of 43)
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Jonalogic said:
Bugger the dogma and negativity. Remember, it's all about the MUSIC.
Well said Jon,
some people here remind me of a biologist/curator friend of mine who once jokingly said " Animals don't exist until they have been put in jar and have been properly labeled."
There seem to be some here who feel the same regarding recorded music.
Their loss.
Any news about the new version of the Chord Hugo in your part of the world. Still no new stock in Singapore.
On top of DSD 64 ie SACD standard DSD,it plays double DSD and even DXD.And all gapless by the way.
Morover it does all this at an SQ level that few if any SACD player does. What SACD player plays basically any digital format and resolution out there?
Cheers Chris of the jungle
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Post by Chris April 12, 2014 (13 of 43)
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puppetmaster said:
Charge $5 for a download & I may bite. $25+? Please.
The labels have not passed any savings to the buyers. They are charging roughly the same price as SACD without any of the packaging or production costs.
For smaller labels there are still no savings only hefty investments involved!
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diw said:
Thanks for initiating this thread, hopefully others will have useful contributions. ...
As far as the Oppo is concerned, I have 2 questions:
1) Will it playback MC high rez files? I realize this is not an issue for you, but I will only go in this direction when MC is part of the equation.
2) I have an older Oppo which had lots of issues on playback of files, particularly it couldn't do gapless FLAC playback. So I have never tried using that functionality. Has that issue been solved with the current models, or the other players you recommended?
...
Hi
1) Definitely! I tried it for a laugh, and it works fine. It's an Oppo, after all.
2) Strangely, no. And heaven knows I have been in long conversations with Oppo's nice UK tech folk about this. And I think they are puzzled, too.
I find this inability to do gapless musically destructive. As a result, regretfully, this has become a deal breaker for me, and I am looking elsewhere for an upgrade path. So close, yet so far...
I can't even use it to push digits into an external high quality DAC.
So, if this bothers you, beware.
Cheers.
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Chris said:
Well said Jon,
1) some people here remind me of a biologist/curator friend of mine who once jokingly said " Animals don't exist until they have been put in jar and have been properly labeled."
There seem to be some here who feel the same regarding recorded music.
Their loss.
2) Any news about the new version of the Chord Hugo in your part of the world. Still no new stock in Singapore.
On top of DSD 64 ie SACD standard DSD,it plays double DSD and even DXD.And all gapless by the way.
Morover it does all this at an SQ level that few if any SACD player does. What SACD player plays basically any digital format and resolution out there?
Cheers Chris of the jungle
Hi, Tarzan
1) A shame. Nevertheless, there is something ultimately futile and pitiful about folk resisting - or even hiding from - an idea whose time has come. Life is about change, after all, and embracing the new.
' Horses are good enough for me and my dad and grandad, bugger these damnfangled trains - noisy smelly, things, they are, Ooo-arr...'
Just think how silly they're going to feel in a few years!
2) Nothing on the Hugo here. Am still trying to get an audition against the Aurelic Vega and new PS Audio Directstream.
A point to ponder on gapless playback. Surely this is not a DAC function, but earlier upstream? Say, if I output a bitstream from my Oppo - which does NOT do GPB - it would still hiccough after going through the DAC?
Otherwise I could use the Oppo as a 'bit-pusher' - which would be kinda cool.
Cheers
Jon
PS What, still reading, Disbeliever? Go away.
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Deciding when and what to upgrade has now got even more complicated as I guess one should try to future proof the system. I currently use an Oppo 93 via HDMI into a Marantz 5004 avr. I can play hires downloads in stereo or multi channel (the former up to 192 and the latter at 96) via a solid state usb device on the Oppo - though in PCM flac only. The files play seamlessly. The Marantz is doing the conversion to analogue. My question is - would it be better to upgrade the Marantz (maybe to the latest 8000 series) or would I be better to go for the newer OPPOs? Or do I need both. If I went for the Oppos would I be better to use analogue out for music ie using the dacs of the OPPO)? I suspect that on the current system there is not much difference in the DACs of the Marantz vs the OPPO. My aim would be to be able to hear music (mainly classical) at its best from SACD, BDA and also PCM and DSD dowloads in multi channel.
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Post by tailspn April 13, 2014 (17 of 43)
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Or hold off a purchasing decision for at least another six months. The entire hi-res download movement has caught the hardware industry by surprise, so the products you see today are patches to existing designs to accommodate this new delivery technology. It's relatively easy for DAC manufactures to add capability that's already inherent in the chips they use, but requires a complete design cycle for the hardware player manufactures.
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tailspn said:
Or hold off a purchasing decision for at least another six months. The entire hi-res movement has caught the hardware industry by surprise, so the products you see today are patches to existing designs to accommodate this new delivery technology. It's relatively easy for DAC manufactures to add capability that's already inherent in the chips they use, but requires a complete design cycle for the hardware player manufactures.
Yes, I have come independently to a very similar conclusion.
The only genuinely all-new hardware knocking around is the Sony HAP-Z1ES. I should be in a position to advise a bit more on this next month after (finally) an audition.
If that bombs, it's definitely wait and see time.
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Post by onenairb April 13, 2014 (19 of 43)
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diw said:
As far as the Oppo is concerned, I have 2 questions:
1) Will it playback MC high rez files? I realize this is not an issue for you, but I will only go in this direction when MC is part of the equation.
2) I have an older Oppo which had lots of issues on playback of files, particularly it couldn't do gapless FLAC playback. So I have never tried using that functionality. Has that issue been solved with the current models, or the other players you recommended?
...
Jonalogic said:
Hi
1) Definitely! I tried it for a laugh, and it works fine. It's an Oppo, after all.
2) Strangely, no. And heaven knows I have been in long conversations with Oppo's nice UK tech folk about this. And I think they are puzzled, too.
I find this inability to do gapless musically destructive. As a result, regretfully, this has become a deal breaker for me, and I am looking elsewhere for an upgrade path. So close, yet so far...
I can't even use it to push digits into an external high quality DAC.
So, if this bothers you, beware.
Cheers.
Actually...
1) Yes.
USB
- Flac Stereo up to 24/192
- Flac MC (5.1 tested) up to 24/192
- DSD64 Stereo
- DSD64 MC (5.1 tested)
802.11 Wireless
- Flac Stereo up to 24/192
- Flac MC (5.1 tested) up to 24/192
2) Yes
It performs Gapless playback via USB source. It will also let you build playlists from USB and playback in Gapless.
As I type I have been listening to Jean Micheal Jarre 'Equinox' 24/96 Gapless and the new Currentzis 'Le Nozze Di Figaro' MC 5.1 24/192 flac Gapless (from Qobus).
Current firmware does not support Gapless over 802.11 wireless. Not tested wired but I have been told it is the same.
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onenairb said:
2) Yes
It performs Gapless playback via USB source. It will also let you build playlists from USB and playback in Gapless.
As I type I have been listening to Jean Micheal Jarre 'Equinox' 24/96 Gapless and the new Currentzis 'Le Nozze Di Figaro' MC 5.1 24/192 flac (from Qobus).
Current firmware does not support Gapless over 802.11 wireless. Not tested wired but I have been told it is the same.
Not so, regrettably. I have latest firmware on my 105EU*, and it does not implement gapless playback on segue (continuous) tracks. And I have plenty (like a couple of dozen) recordings which amply demonstrate this on USB input.
Oppo freely admits they have NOT yet fixed this problem. But they are working on it...
* BDP10XEU-69-0124B, released in Beta on 14th February 2014
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