[pageman99]

As the title of the thread says Stereophile reviewed the Oppo 970 universal player in the May issue. Here's the link.

http://www.stereophile.com/cdplayers/507oppo/index.html

The review has some nice things to say about the Oppo, but what I found interesting is the reviewers seemed surprised at the Oppo's performance.

I've been using a cheap DVD player (an LG) as a transport for a year and a half now and find it satisfactory. But only if when run through a good quality DAC. No surprise there.

DVD players need to have fast electronics and a fairly large memory, if only to capture all the info required to create a good picture. These same requirements help make the player shine for audio.

Of course because the players are built to a price, the internal DACs and power supplies are on the cheaper side, hence, very good but not audiophile sound.

The reviewer then ran the Oppo's coax digital out through a Slim Devices Transporter, which if I remember rightly is a $2,000 piece of equipment. They found the sound to be excellent. Duh...

Bottom line is take all reviews with a grain of salt. The stereophile community and those that review gear tend to be conservative and mostly a bit behind the times.

The converse of that conclusion is that the folks here at headfi are generally on the cutting edge. They are always willing to experiment and invest their hard earned dollars looking for the latest and greatest in sound. Plus many, many of the folks here have great contacts within the manufacturing and design community.

Their willingness to share what they've learned is a great asset to those of us just trying to achieve sonic bliss on a budget. So just wanted to say thanks to every one here.

 

[jules650]

That review has piqued my curiosity. However it doesn't look like it's available in the UK, at least not for a lot more money.

 

[hciman77]

Stereophile's measurements show the Oppo to have dismal jitter figures. There are sidebands a mere -90db down and an overall peak to peak jitter of 4ns. These are figures that even the lowly (in jitter terms) Marantz 63/67 would sneer at.

Yet oddly many folks still think it still sounds quite good, poor deluded fools.

How can that be possible

Could it be ultra-low jitter really doesnt make that much difference ?

Just a thought...

 

[slwiser]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hciman77 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Stereophile's measurements show the Oppo to have dismal jitter figures. There are sidebands a mere -90db down and an overall peak to peak jitter of 4ns. These are figures that even the lowly (in jitter terms) Marantz 63/67 would sneer at. Yet oddly many folks still think it still sounds quite good, poor deluded fools. How can that be possible Could it be ultra-low jitter really doesnt make that much difference ? Just a thought...

Maybe the distortion effect of that analog jitter reminds many of the distortion of a good tube amp.

The potential for loosing digital bits is a problem that I would like addressed by someone.

 

[hciman77]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slwiser /img/forum/go_quote.gif Maybe the distortion effect of that analog jitter reminds many of the distortion of a good tube amp.

Touche - imagine the accute on the e please.

Not being a tubie I couldnt comment in detail, but I think one might find a few commentators suggesting that Tubes dont in general really distort that much more if at all.

Quote:

The potential for loosing digital bits is a problem that I would like addressed by someone.

I dont think you lose bits with jitter as such, the way I understand it is that it raises the noise floor so the effect is to lower the effective resolution from say 16 to 15 bits for random jitter, deterministic jitter i.e specific high jitter sidebands is a different effect as I understand it. As I understand it bit-error rates are so low these days that bit-dropping really isnt a problem as such. As for super-low jitter figures even some boutique players like the Wadia dont get it much below 200ps which is an utter disgrace if Dunn and Co are to be believed.

Steve Nugent of Empirical Audio can offer jitter-lowering solutions.

 

[orkney]

Hi,

Count me among the dissenters on this one. I have the Oppo and find it to be an excellent and trouble-free DVD player but I don't just see it as the audiophile giant killer that it has been made out to be in some quarters. Through its analog outputs it sounds cloudy and muffled even compared to a stock 5g iPod and though you're absolutely right that it improves when used with an external DAC (Corda Aria, Quad 99 CDP2) it still sounds substantially thinner and more coloured, IMHO, than the same tracks as lossless files played through my MacBook Pro. No doubt there are excellent synergies to be found between the Oppo and some DAC but I'm not sure that it would outperform a good CD-only transport, especially a quality vintage one. But perhaps I just haven't invested enough time setting up and matching it properly. I'd certainly be interested in hearing more about some of these magical Oppo combinations and trying out one or two.

best,

o

 

[slwiser]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hciman77 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I dont think you lose bits with jitter as such, the way I understand it is that it raises the noise floor so the effect is to lower the effective resolution from say 16 to 15 bits for random jitter, deterministic jitter i.e specific high jitter sidebands is a different effect as I understand it.

I don't think Stereophile was saying anything about jitter reducing the bit in the data stream. They seem to me to be saying that the Oppo unit simply truncated the signal stream to 16 bits from 24. This is not something anyone would want I think. I have contacted Oppo about this review and requested that they get back concerning this issue.

 

[hciman77]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slwiser /img/forum/go_quote.gif I don't think Stereophile was saying anything about jitter reducing the bit in the data stream. They seem to me to be saying that the Oppo unit simply truncated the signal stream to 16 bits from 24. This is not something anyone would want I think. I have contacted Oppo about this review and requested that they get back concerning this issue.

Ah, are you talking about DSD to PCM conversion ?

 

[kool bubba ice]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hciman77 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Stereophile's measurements show the Oppo to have dismal jitter figures. There are sidebands a mere -90db down and an overall peak to peak jitter of 4ns. These are figures that even the lowly (in jitter terms) Marantz 63/67 would sneer at. Yet oddly many folks still think it still sounds quite good, poor deluded fools. How can that be possible Could it be ultra-low jitter really doesnt make that much difference ? Just a thought...

Jitter is only part of the equation.. & I feel to many people over react to jitter.. But I do feel better made CD players will sound better then cheaper made CD players.. Better build quality, better components, power supply etc.. I read many of your post, & you tend to think a 60.00 DVD player will sound the same as a 1,000 plus CD player? Would this be correct?

 

[hciman77]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kool bubba ice /img/forum/go_quote.gif Jitter is only part of the equation.. & I feel to many people over react to jitter.. But I do feel better made CD players will sound better then cheaper made CD players.. Better build quality, better components, power supply etc.. I read many of your post, & you tend to think a 60.00 DVD player will sound the same as a 1,000 plus CD player? Would this be correct?

Mostly but not entirely. I think my $60 DVD player sounds much the same as the $460 NAD I used to own and the $210 Marantz CD player I currently own, that my Rotel CD player sounds much the same as my old Yamaha CD player and that my older Rotel sounded about the same as my Denon. I judge this from sighted tests which are not terribly reliable but I dont think the missus is up for proctoring blind tests.

In my experience I have not honestly found much difference at the price levels I inhabit which go from $60 to about $750. Beyond that I can only judge vicariously. However sometrimes there are big measurable differences between components, some high end CD players (e.g some Wadias) do have somewhat rolled off high ends, this may very well be audible.

In general my guess is that if two components measure the same they probably sound pretty much the same.

Blind tests have given some evidence that supports both the audible difference and no audible difference position. High end CD players have been shown in some cases to be indistinguishable from more modest units and other tests have shown that units can be distinguished quite reliably.

 

[trains are bad]

I've started using my Oppo 981 to play CDs with the Digital coax to a technics surround processor (switchd to stereo mode). It sounds quite good, but it doesn't play properly. It starts all the tracks about 1/4 of a second in, rather than the very beginning, which is unacceptable.

 

[melomaniac]

my Oppo sounds good but I agree that it is not (IMHO) superior to lossless feed from a computer. I have tried some DACs (from cheap kits to Bel Canto, Apogee, etc) but found them to not contribute enough to make them worth the outlay; so I guess I'm still looking for the right thing... the Oppo website used to say the 970 is best for audio, while some of the other models have higher specs for video/HT (upconversion)

 

[Dept_of_Alchemy]

How does the Oppo compare to the Toshiba 3950?