OPPO BDP-83 Question

[MickeyVee]

Thanks Jeff.. that's pretty much what I thought as there is improvement running it through the PS Audio DAC.
For those of us with budget systems, it is a 'dream machine'

 

[tonepub]

Definitely, I ran the one here through the Neko Audio Dac ($1295) and it dramatically improved the redbook playback, so if you've got the PS, that's a very nice combination without spending a ton of $$...

 

[JMAUSGP]

I think Jeff's assesment is essentially correct. The giant killer tag comes from the fact that there is only one other 'Swiss Army Knife" player out there to date and that is the Denon A1UDCI which retails for about $4000.00. The debate rages as to whether the Denon is 8 times better than the OPPO BDP-83.

And if you want a Bluray only player then you certainly can get one for less than 500 bucks. Heck I will sell you a perfectly good Sony BDP-S1 for 50 bucks, if all you want is Bluray......just PM me on the BDP-S1.

So far my BDP-S1 has played every Bluray that I have put in it and I have over 100 Blurays collected so far, yeah I know that's dumb but at the moment Bluray is just the latest in a long line of dead formats.

But if you happen to have a multi-channel HT system with a single HDMI connection that is no muss and no fuss or you want an analogue connection between your UDP and your older HT processor.

And you happen to own some dead or dying audio formats and some dead or dying dvd formats and some dead or dying digital music formats and some dead or dying Bluray formats, well then...........I believe the argument can be made that all formats are dying, in fact that argument has been made many times.....even our own Bernard has said that all great men are dead and even he feels sick.....but I digress.

Anyway, I think the main point about the Oppo is good luck trying to beat the Oppo BDP-83 in value and technical ability. It does more things well or better than any other player out there, more being the operative word. I guess it is just refreshing to see a product come along that does so many things well and at such an affordable price point.

I have beta tested many products but I have never beta tested a product that was as mature and well developed as the Oppo BDP-83 and the way they marketed the BDP-83 was unique, you gotta give Oppo a little credit for selling the BDP-83 via a lottery.

Again, I think that is why the BDP-83 is getting praise and it is real users that are praising it not just reviewers, until Jeff that is

And just one last thing and it is not trivial. Read the AVS forum threads about Oppo and see if you can find another Bluray manufacturer that gets as high a praise for customer service as Oppo does.

Okay, Jim Power at ML doesn't count, although I heard that ML is coming out with a line of Amps and components tuned to Electrostats and that a Universal Player including Bluray was in the works.....................Okay I made that last part up....Except about Jim Power and how good ML customer service is.

 

[wink]

So what are the best, more high-end, bluray players out there right now or that are coming out? I know Marantz and Denon have new players out. McIntosh just released their upconverting 1080p universal player, but absent of bluray. Who are the giants right now?

Dan

 

[RUR]

The new Denon A1UDCI uber-player has just started shipping and I know Seth plans to get his hands on one soonest. Hopefully, he'll post his thoughts once he's got some drive time.

 

[JMAUSGP]

If you are just talking Bluray, the two players that are generally recognized as the top of the heap are the Sony BDP-5000ES and the Pioneer Elite 09FD, not necessarily in that order.

The Sony is 2 grand and the Pio is $2500. They play bluray and upconvert DVDs but that is about it.

They do not play music formats and there is a huge debate over on AVS Forum as to how much better one blurary player actually displays bluray over the other.

I won't go there, but suffice to say other than the uber Denon, these are the most expensive bluray players out there.

I checked out the Sony and the Pio but went with the Oppo for obvious value and technical reasons. I like to play music on my HT as well as my other system, with the Oppo I can with the other two I can not. Nothing more or less.

For bluray I compared the Oppo to the Sony and the Oppo was good enough. I have not compared the Pio but again the Oppo did enough of what I wanted that it was an easy choice.

And it let me spend the extra cash on the Simaudio Moon Orbiter and Titan.

 

[wink]

What I'm really waiting for is a really good high end universal player that has blu ray as well to replace my Denon DVD and my Adcom CD player. The trick is finding a great universal unit that will sound better on cd's than my Adcom GCD-750. At a $1200 price point it blew away a lot more expensive units in side by side comparisons (at the time).

 

[MickeyVee]

Wink.. you may want to still take a look at the Oppo with a good external DAC for 2 channel redbook. I'm pretty happy with my Oppo & the PS Audio DLIII DAC.
Maybe Jeff/tonepub could recommend a DAC with the Oppo that would best your Adcom.

 

[JMAUSGP]

I think MickeyVee is on to something. The Oppo BDP-83 with a NEKO or the PS Audio Digital Link III is a combo that will be very hard to beat unless you want to spend really tall dollars.

But if that is the case get the Denon for 4 grand and call it a day.

 

[DrJRapp]

Okay, Jim Power at ML doesn't count, although I heard that ML is coming out with a line of Amps and components tuned to Electrostats and that a Universal Player including Bluray was in the works.....................Okay I made that last part up....Except about Jim Power and how good ML customer service is.

That's really not as far fetched as it might seem at first blush. ML is owned by the same eqity group that owns Anthem, so there are electronics talents in the family for both design and manufacture of such beasties!

Anyhow, I got notice from Oppo on Friday that my 83 shipped.

 

[sleepysurf]

I think MickeyVee is on to something. The Oppo BDP-83 with a NEKO or the PS Audio Digital Link III is a combo that will be very hard to beat unless you want to spend really tall dollars.

But if that is the case get the Denon for 4 grand and call it a day.

Using the Oppo as a transport into a quality outboard DAC gives the best of both worlds, at a very reasonable price point. After about 10 hrs of listening, I prefer the Oppo/Squeezebox combo for Redbook CD, but the Oppo DAC and analog outs are certainly no slouch.

It'll be interesting to read how it compares to the Denon!

 

[JMAUSGP]

One last thing about the Oppo BDP-83 and I was going to not say anything else, but now I have too.

This weekend I ordered another BDP-83 from Oppo Digital. There seemed to be some issue when I went to checkout that flashed a message that I had never seen before.

Sure enough PayPal debited my account twice. Of course when I brought this to PayPal's attention they said that they already paid Oppo and I would have to get a refund through Oppo. Basically they passed the buck and said good luck and I can come back to them if I have trouble. And then they sent me a two page dissertation on payment disputes.

I then replied to Oppo from their email confirming my order that there had been a PayPal error and that I had paid $517 twice for the single Oppo-83 and just under 2 hours later, I get an acknowledgement from Oppo of the error and a full refund. I don't know about you guys, but that was a first for me.

Usually I end up going round and round with companies that I end up needing a refund done for me. And some like Sprint, Dish Network, Verizon, I have on several occasions not successfully gotten a refund. They still owe me&%^#@

If you ever have need to use Oppo's customer service, you will be glad you bougth Oppo. I know today it is getting harder and harder to say that about companies.....ML excluded.

 

[DrJRapp]

My Oppo arrived on Friday, and I must say that I was very impressed by the presentation. Inside the unique center opening box the unit was suspended in space by black high density flexible polifoam and wrapped in a fitted cloth bag that appears to have anti-static properties, but additionally can serve to carry the unit if one desires due to it's sewn in handles. All the accessories are contained in a precision fitting black box that give you the feel that it contains a Tag Heuer or other fine watch. I've had two previous Oppo players a 970 & a 971 and the packing was above average on both them, but the presentation of the BDP 83 takes things to a different level altogether. It seems that Oppo wants to take it's image up a notch from being just a value leader to the next step up the food chain. It is often said that the way to accompish that move is to put a superb product in place and then "act as if".

The player itself appears to be well made. It has a certain heft that indicates care probably was taken in shielding and power supply design, and the feel gives the impression that inside one will find more than minimalist parts. Assembly appears to be flawless. The loader, a week point in many of the units in the Oppo's price range, is substantial in both look and feel and fluidity of movement....so far so good. One of the criteria I use to judge a HDMI devices is the secuity in which the HDMI cable is held in place once plugged into the socket. Many high price devices have shown to have overlooked this minuscule, yet highly important characteristic. In the theater environment cables often shake loose easily due to LFE. I once had a very pricey Anthem Statement D2 that would allow the cables to readily slip out unless they were externally supported in a fashion where it was impossible for them to move. Anyway, the Oppo passes muster in this departmnent. My existing HDMI cables which are nothing special just mid quality HDMI 1.3 spec generic cables from Monoprice, fit snugly into the back of the Oppo and I don't think it is likely to go anywhere. The remote control, with it's back lighting and excellent size, feel and readability is a true pleasure to use.


Installation and setup in my dedicated theater to replace the Samsung 1400 was a snap. Before I proceed I will state that I am using the BDP 83 primarily as a Bluray player with audio output in bitstream to be decoded by my Integra DTC 9.8 pre-pro, so my comments will pertain mostly to the video aspects of this player.

The Integra uses the Reon chip to accomplish it's video processing and the application in the 9.8 has been shown to have it's faults by todays standards so my objective was to be able to pass a quality video signal through the 9.8 without the Reon having to do any of the work. I was able to do this very successfully with the Oppo and I am very very pleased with the results.

I pride myself in having built an "organic" dedicated theater that leaves one with the impression they have been watching a film in a real movie theater. While I've only had the opportunity to play four movies on the BDP 83 so far.... three in Bluray and one regular DVD to test the up scaling qualities of the deck, my initial thoughts are that the BDP 83 makes a small but significant contribution to the "organic" nature of the theater. The 1080P 24hz output of this player imparts a film-like smoothness to the image unequaled by any blueray player I have seen for less than $2K.
I have several days of tweaking of the OPPO to team it with with my Optoma HD80 projector before I give full and final judgment, but it LOOKS like a winner so far!

 

[SteveInNC]

Mine arrived Thursday. I cycled through the steps on the enclosed Spears and Munsil Bluray hi-def setup disc. I was pleased to find that my Kuro 5020 only required some mild tweaking of brightness and contrast. While it would certainly benefit from a professional setup, it's good enough for my purposes.

Unlike Jerry, my BDP is serving as my main audio transport too, replacing a Denon 1920. I specifically got the BDP for its value as a "universal" player and as my first step into hi-def video playback (Bluray). My other hi-def source is a DirecTV HR, which is usually limited to 1080i or 720p, and suffers from their inherent trade-off of compression .vs number of channels per bandwidth.

I ran the audio both as streamed digital fed over HDMI into my Denon 3808 for decoding, and as multi-channel analog audio. My speakers are Ascent i with dual Depths, with mains fed from a Musical Fidelity A5 Integrated. The surrounds are non-descript bookshelf speakers. The Denon has been balanced for the room using the built-in Audyssey system.

I used a Telarc SACD sampler disc for source material. It contains a combination of jazz and classical tracks, recorded to the disc in their original peak levels rather than tweaking them to a new average range. The tracks are ordered from loudest to quietest (less loud?) so that you can start at a comfortable listening level and avoid being surprised by a much hotter track, although you will have to tweak the volume up as the disc progresses. The enclosed pamphlet indicates that there is approximately a 45% difference in level between the first and last tracks.

I also played the DVD portion of Sheryl Crow's Wildflower release. This is a collection of songs from the album, recorded acoustically with her on piano and a guitar accompaniest, apparently recorded and filmed in what looks like her living room. The standard-def video upscaled beautifully, and the audio, while simply Dolby, was very good also.

I am very pleased with the video and audio performance of the unit. While I know that many here consider it a good transport when feeding an external DAC, for my level of system, the BDP easily complements or exceeds the abilities of my system and listening room as a whole. I think that it easily fits into my desired position on the cost .vs diminishing returns part of the curve. I highly recommend it.