Post by dbmay75 January 2, 2008 (1 of 11)
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Hi everyone,
I'm posting this thread to get some feedback about whether or not owning a universal player means we're missing out on something big besides a slight difference in audio quality due to a chip.
As the owner of an OPPO DV-980H which cost me only $145 and plays everything under the sun except Blu-Ray and HD-DVD in 7.1 sound, I have been very satisfied with the results. It's not perfect, of course, but my complaints are minor and I've saved both a ton of moola as well as shelf space by not having to stack several components together simply to enjoy the benefits of both SACD and DVD-Audio.
Let's not forget that Sony, Marantz, Denon and Krell once used to be the new kid on the block, too. And while they can charge $500 for a device that costs $50 to make, plays only one specialized format and still outsells the 'on sale' items, the truth is that DSD technology is shall we say 'aging gracefully' and besides stronger advertising, the best thing to push SACD to the masses will be to have a 3-year old company like OPPO ask only $170 for something that does everything and does it well enough to win several awards. Perhaps then SACD will FINALLY have the attention it deserves.
And when my OPPO dies, I'll be out $145, not $500 (because the Sony WILL eventually die, too) and by that time, OPPO's newest model will cost less and do more than what it does now!
As always, your feedback is encouraged and welcomed.
Cheers,
Dan
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I am in no way ashamed (not have I ever been) of my McCormack UDP-1 player. I got it for about one half of what a new one would have cost because my dealer was selling to to get the newer UDP-1 Deluxe. I have heard many of the top SACD players, from Krell, dCS, Accuphase, EMM Labs, etc. While my UDP does not play to the level of these exalted and costly brands, I have been immensely satisfied with the redbook as well as SACD performance.....DVD's look killer as well...it is nice to know I can get such a high level of playback w/o spending well in excess of $10K!!!!
Cheers,
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Post by tommwi January 2, 2008 (3 of 11)
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dbmay75 said:
As always, your feedback is encouraged and welcomed.
Cheers,
Dan
Trust your own ears. That is what matters and there is of course no need to be embarrassed what so ever, no matter what equipment you have. Listen for yourself and take notice that this branch continuously develops and get better by the day (hmm...-year). And cheaper! I think the price tag is telling one part of the story; the more expensive the better, but with increasingly diminishing return.
My suggestion is to skip all the trash talk of PCM you may find here or elsewhere. Or the superlative DSD comments so frequently told by many. Take the above mentioned McCormack UDP-1 player as an example (odd one actually). It’s a great machine with power supply and analogue output stages to compete with the best. But with a D/A converter comparable with the worst and consequently this machine is incapable of delivering high resolution audio above CD quality, no matter how good the SACD or DVD-A is. This machine doesn’t perform anything above CD quality in terms of resolution, still it sounds great because the “digital domain” is probably the least important part in the sound chain (or at least severely overrated) and its strengths the most important! Unless the player is made of led, the weight is probably a better indicator of sound quality than eventual multi format capabilities. Most players today are the opposite of UDP-1; they have relevant D/A converters (save the cheapest multi machines) but more likely insufficient power supply and analogue output stages. Those qualities come in kilograms... :)
Well-that’s my belief at least…
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dbmay75 said:
Hi everyone,
I'm posting this thread to get some feedback about whether or not owning a universal player means we're missing out on something big besides a slight difference in audio quality due to a chip.
As the owner of an OPPO DV-980H which cost me only $145 and plays everything under the sun except Blu-Ray and HD-DVD in 7.1 sound, I have been very satisfied with the results. It's not perfect, of course, but my complaints are minor and I've saved both a ton of moola as well as shelf space by not having to stack several components together simply to enjoy the benefits of both SACD and DVD-Audio.
Let's not forget that Sony, Marantz, Denon and Krell once used to be the new kid on the block, too. And while they can charge $500 for a device that costs $50 to make, plays only one specialized format and still outsells the 'on sale' items, the truth is that DSD technology is shall we say 'aging gracefully' and besides stronger advertising, the best thing to push SACD to the masses will be to have a 3-year old company like OPPO ask only $170 for something that does everything and does it well enough to win several awards. Perhaps then SACD will FINALLY have the attention it deserves.
And when my OPPO dies, I'll be out $145, not $500 (because the Sony WILL eventually die, too) and by that time, OPPO's newest model will cost less and do more than what it does now!
As always, your feedback is encouraged and welcomed.
Cheers,
Dan
Your question sounds more like a question to yourself to somehow make yourself feel better for picking up an OPPO when other systems out there are beyond your reach financially.
You haven't bought your system yet and you're touting the advantages of OPPO w/o a system that will do more than what you have now? I don't doubt OPPO is great for what it does, but you're comparing something that you aren't able to compare it to with something else. Sony, Marantz, Denon, and Krell have always had a well-deserved reputation. OPPO may someday as well. However, to bring those into the discussion when you haven't heard how great a better quality SACD player is when compared to your OPPO means you are missing something.
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Post by Livy January 2, 2008 (5 of 11)
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tommwi said:
Trust your own ears. That is what matters and there is of course no need to be embarrassed what so ever, no matter what equipment you have. Listen for yourself and take notice that this branch continuously develops and get better by the day (hmm...-year). And cheaper! I think the price tag is telling one part of the story; the more expensive the better, but with increasingly diminishing return.
My suggestion is to skip all the trash talk of PCM you may find here or elsewhere. Or the superlative DSD comments so frequently told by many. Take the above mentioned McCormack UDP-1 player as an example (odd one actually). It’s a great machine with power supply and analogue output stages to compete with the best. But with a D/A converter comparable with the worst and consequently this machine is incapable of delivering high resolution audio above CD quality, no matter how good the SACD or DVD-A is. This machine doesn’t perform anything above CD quality in terms of resolution, still it sounds great because the “digital domain” is probably the least important part in the sound chain (or at least severely overrated) and its strengths the most important! Unless the player is made of led, the weight is probably a better indicator of sound quality than eventual multi format capabilities. Most players today are the opposite of UDP-1; they have relevant D/A converters (save the cheapest multi machines) but more likely insufficient power supply and analogue output stages. Those qualities come in kilograms... :)
Well-that’s my belief at least…
Tommwi,
We discussed this once before, long ago on another board now defunct, but what would be your current ideal recommendation for a CD (only) player?
Livy
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dbmay75 said:
Hi everyone,
I'm posting this thread to get some feedback about whether or not owning a universal player means we're missing out on something big besides a slight difference in audio quality due to a chip.
As the owner of an OPPO DV-980H which cost me only $145 and plays everything under the sun except Blu-Ray and HD-DVD in 7.1 sound, I have been very satisfied with the results. It's not perfect, of course, but my complaints are minor and I've saved both a ton of moola as well as shelf space by not having to stack several components together simply to enjoy the benefits of both SACD and DVD-Audio.
Let's not forget that Sony, Marantz, Denon and Krell once used to be the new kid on the block, too. And while they can charge $500 for a device that costs $50 to make, plays only one specialized format and still outsells the 'on sale' items, the truth is that DSD technology is shall we say 'aging gracefully' and besides stronger advertising, the best thing to push SACD to the masses will be to have a 3-year old company like OPPO ask only $170 for something that does everything and does it well enough to win several awards. Perhaps then SACD will FINALLY have the attention it deserves.
And when my OPPO dies, I'll be out $145, not $500 (because the Sony WILL eventually die, too) and by that time, OPPO's newest model will cost less and do more than what it does now!
As always, your feedback is encouraged and welcomed.
Cheers,
Dan
If space is a premium and having the support to integrate multiple players is limited then moving to a universal player has many advantages. Having said this I would suggest having dedicated players for different formats is preferred provided you can afford it and that the space and inputs to drive them are available. In my experiences having single components designed for multiple distinct purposes usually translates into design compromises somewhere.
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Post by ramesh January 2, 2008 (7 of 11)
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I bought a Marantz DV 8300 as a first SACD player and now have the DV 9600. I am glad I didn't buy a dedicated upmarket SACD player, as there are a slew of comments on the Audio Asylum site from people who bought the Marantz SA1, the original Krell SACD standard etc and had the SACD transport die or require expensive repairs.
Even though Marantz and Accuphase released dedicated SACD players by 2001, it took these companies six years to make a dedicated non-OEM SACD transport. It would seem that the lifespan of the first and second generation SACD players is going to be very short due to transport problems, so I haven't wasted my money on these products. In contrast, I've had my Wadia CD player for seven years and it hasn't given a second of trouble. Even when I get a dedicated SACD player, the DV9600 has such a splendid DVD performance that it will still be a useful player, although the other day I was disconcerted when I put my hand to the player's body inadvertantly and felt a heavy vibration playing one SACD.
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Post by Julien January 3, 2008 (8 of 11)
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ramesh said:
although the other day I was disconcerted when I put my hand to the player's body inadvertantly and felt a heavy vibration playing one SACD.
All Marantz products make an awful mechanical noise when they play an SACD. Even the SA-11. They sound warm and nice but not open at all unfortunately, anyway on SACD they easily outperform the CD players of the same price on CD. Which is not the case with many universal players (Denon...).
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tommwi said:
Trust your own ears. ...SNIP
tommwi's line above is the only thing that matters, really. We often talk too much about technique and too little about how we feel about the music.
Where I live it's difficult to find dedicated music players that play surround discs; they're usually stereo only. Nothing wrong with stereo, but with some music programmes the multi channel mix is an extra blessing.
Therefore, where I live we are usually "forced" to buy multi players with built-in video circuits.
I have three SACD players. Two of them convert the signal to PCM. Only one is true DSD. To my ears, the true DSD player is the only one that sounds really good.
On the other hand, I have several discs that don't sound better on my DSD player. For example, this is true for music that was produced on PCM equipment; why bother "upscaling" it to SACD at all? My Diana Krall disc is one such "unnecessary" purchase I've made; probably it was recorded in 24bit/48kHz anyway. If you own, for example, the Frankie Goes to Hollywood SACD, you will experience the same thing regardless of player. Most popular music today is at various stages treated on DAWs, and softsynths, plug-in effects like de-essers, eq, reverbs, etc are "PCM-ware" so you often really can't escape it. All my Deutsche Grammophon SACDs sound quite PCM-ish too; I'm just guessing, but I believe they are recorded in high resolution PCM, mixed in lower resolution and then transferred to SACD. So they are in fact already PCM-SACDs. Moreover, you may perhaps buy a DSD player with poor analog filtering, and a "PCM/DSD" converting player with very fine analog filters. In such a case the latter one will probably sound the best.
Of course it doesn't stop there: Even if you have a clean path the microphoning of the instruments may be all wrong, the chamber acoustics, too.
If we were to chase all elements that make up a fine recording and a fine record, we will soon end up with rather few albums.
Music is the important matter, not the medium so much. And as many people point out, you can get fine results with many a technology, be it vinyl discs, PCM, DSD or whatever. It's often not so much the acronyms that matter, but what you do with what you've got.
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Post by bholz January 3, 2008 (10 of 11)
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Embarrassed about having a Universal Player? No way!
Embarassed that my NAD M55 cost me so much more than what is now available? YES
If the NAD had been working perfectly these past 2 years (I'm on my 2nd replacement unit now - all I can say is so far, so good) I would not care so much. It's an excellent machine for both Audio and Video, but I do expect these things to last quite a bit longer. Fortunately, NAD has been VERY responsive in working with me to resolve the issues (e.g. firmware upgrades to address DVD-A playback issues) or in replacing the unit entirely.
Bill
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