OPPO 105D break in

[RCHeliGuy]

BTW, while I'm very happy with my system, I'm not pretending to have any comparative first hand knowledge of many of the components being talked about. I'm talking in generalities only.

I got busy a while back and haven't gotten around to room treatments yet. While not as sexy as expensive hardware, I'm fairly certain that this is where I should focus right now. Past that I'm just not very motivated to work on improving the sound that already sounds great to me. Maybe I have low standards.

My next big expenditure is going into some rather nice RC Heli equipment that I'm pretty excited about. Sure it can all burn up in a bad crash, but that's what puts a big grin on my face these days so that is where the money goes The adrenaline rush of having something flying at the limits of control is a pretty strong feeling. YMMV

I am enjoying my system quite a bit these days and continue to order new music at what seems like a crazy rate. I have 13 albums arriving tomorrow

 

[bonzo]

There is a guy who replaced his six box total dac twelve (the top model) with the golden gate. Not to mention Big 7 consistently outperformed MSB stack

 

[bonzo]

A 3 for 3 vote of approval. Hardly a compelling consensus IMHO.

Have a great evening.

Best,

Gordon

3/3 in high end is an extremely compelling consensus to demo. Never said one should buy. Especially to demo something that is at much lower value. Sure, I understand not wanting to demo something 5 times the value. Not demoing in this case and buying something else is making an ill-informed purchase that's for sure, because if the demo works there can be only on winner - the person who saved the money to get a better sound. The only reason for not demoing is to argue incessantly on the forum. Another incentive to demo is that then at least I will shut up.

 

[Gordon Gray]

The only reason for not demoing is to argue incessantly on the forum. Another incentive to demo is that then at least I will shut up.

If one wishes to argue incessantly, one should visit / post on WBF. They do that extremely well. Especially the "can you trust your ears" or "can you trust measurements" type threads. There are many of them on that site. Seems like they have a new one once every week. Thousands upon thousands of posts. I stopped posting there. Lots of neurosis and repetition of the same old sh*t IMHO. Too bad really.

I personally have no intention of auditioning a product made and shipped from Poland. Way too many things can go wrong. I trust you can understand that.

PS: As the OP, I respectfully request that we return to the original topic of the thread please. If you want to talk about the Lampi vs the Esoteric, etc., please feel to start your own thread.

 

[RCHeliGuy]

Today I have some Classics arriving Alan Parsons, ELO, Queen, Journey, Cheap Trick, Foreigner etc. I was just back-filling a few albums I missed after I tossed about 400 cassettes a long while back.

I'm going to put my 105D and the rest of my stereo through a little workout when they get here I expect the Alan Parsons will be recorded well. The rest will be hit or miss.

Edit: Sometimes it is better to remember something fondly. Some of these will be good for listening to in the car on long trips.

 

[Brad225]

For my system the stock 105D never lost a slight edginess in the vocals and horns. The space between voices and instruments and depth of the sound stage was just not there. There is no doubt it is a good quality machine for the price. It's on its way back to Oppo though.

As for the ModWright 105 the tubed power supply and output section made a clearly noticeable difference. I had 3 different rectifier tubes and 3 different pairs of driver tubes. I tried all combinations possible and did find one that sounded very close to the Sony SCD-1 I am replacing. It was interesting that the most expensive of the tubes ( Emission Labs rectifier and Psvane driver) that many people on different forums raved about didn't sound good in my system. They were to heavy and bloated in the mids and below. The more reasonable priced Phillips rectifier and Full Music driver lifted that veil and gave depth and clarity to the sound. The unfortunate thing is the voltage with balanced connections is still to low for my system. With that it is on its way to a new owner today.

I spoke with Dan Wright about the voltage and he said they could increase the voltage some but it may come at the risk of degrading the sound. With that I have decided this is probably not the player for me. So the search continues.

 

[bonzo]

We compared the oppo 105 via spdif with a noisy mac air via USB (no audiophile mods) as a transport and the mac was better

 

[RCHeliGuy]

The unfortunate thing is the voltage with balanced connections is still to low for my system.

Do you know what the input impedance of your amplifier is?

The preamp balanced output section for an out of the box OPPO prefers about a 48k ohm input impedance.

Oppo support told me that the input impedance of the amplifier impacted the volume quite a bit.

I'm not sure what the ideal output impedance is with the ModWright modifications.

Also which were the "stock" tubes that came with the modified ModWrite 105 ?

 

[Brad225]

The balanced input on the Ref 3 is 120k and the gain is only 11.6db. The stock 105 has a 4v output and it was fine with the Ref 3. The modded 105 has just under 2v balanced. Dan said the single ended output is higher.

 

[RCHeliGuy]

The balanced input on the Ref 3 is 120k and the gain is only 11.6db. The stock 105 has a 4v output and it was fine with the Ref 3. The modded 105 has just under 2v balanced. Dan said the single ended output is higher.

That is a serious deal breaker!

I imagine that most of us like to crank things up sometimes.

 

[amey01]

We compared the oppo 105 via spdif with a noisy mac air via USB (no audiophile mods) as a transport and the mac was better

I have no doubt. Although to be fair, there are a lot of variables here. It is not just one transport versus the other.

 

[Brad225]

My CLSIIz's weren't real happy a couple of times with the volume on the preamp at 97 out of 103 through my new to me ARC 610T amps and the db level in the room was not that high.

 

[RCHeliGuy]

I have no doubt. Although to be fair, there are a lot of variables here. It is not just one transport versus the other.

What is being described as the transport in this conversation?

 

[Brad225]

Mark, the stock tubes were Tung Sol driver and Sovtek rectifier.