elrod-tom
Moderator - Prefers "stereo weirdo" to "audiophile"
Just took delivery of mine yesterday...had limited listening so far (at the office with AKG K550's single-ended), but I'm impressed. More later...
Has anyone compared the Oppo tothe Mytek Digital which lists at $1500.00? Mytek uses the same ESS Sabre DAC and offers a number of neat features.
So many impressions on the horizon.
Indeed the Mytek is a great looking swiss army knife as well, I think between the two (not including any sound differences) it comes down to preferences of the buyer. Do they want IEEE1394 input (which is awesome idea BTW, HA-1 doesn't have that), do they need 4 pin balanced out (Mytek doesn't have that), do they want a remote (Mytek doesn't have that), which asthetic and level of build quality do they prefer (HA-1 wins that one I think, although I dig the "industrial look" of the Mytek), do they want Bluetooth, etc., etc. Then there is also the $400 price difference which is a pretty big gap and one of the biggest draws to the Oppo for many, how little you spend relative to what you get. Once you start spending $1600 then you get to another level of options. Since they are both 9018, the sound sigs could be similar, I don't know that one, and that would indeed be an interesting comparison, but thank goodness in my case I wanted the features unique to the HA-1, and the $400 makes a difference to me as I will be giving that money to Vinnie at RWA for my AK240 at a minimum (maybe more if there is anything in the Oppo that will improve it affordably, or add an input/output feature I need that I haven't thought of, like firewire .
This is probably the biggest con to buying devices like this vs. separates, less flexibility, so you should make sure that the swiss army knife you choose has all of the blades you need/want, because that is what you are gonna get. The corollary to that is that integrated components are often cheaper due to economies of scale of production, so it may make sense to buy one of these and then add a seperate component to replace one stage. A very common example of this is in the world of receivers, where you could spend $2-3K on a TOL receiver with balanced pre-outs that was %95 percent as good in the pre-amp/processing department as a $10K pre/pro, and probably had more features to boot where most pre/pros typically didn't have as many bells and whistles (like mp3 decoding, etc.). You could then add an excellent amp and come out WAY ahead on budget.
I don't think that we are there yet in the head-fi world as you don't see a proliferation of integrated units (once you see some in Best Buy, we are there!), but Oppo may be one of the companies that help to get us there, as if their product sells well enough, I expect other makers(Sony, Pioneer, Denon, etc.) with integrated units of high quality yet much more affordable than their previous attempts.
Back on topic, FedEX dropped off my HA-1 10 min ago, I will post my unboxing impressions and pics to the thread in a bit.
The Mytek does provide professional 3 pin XLR output, has Philips RC-5 remote control capability so it may be used with virtually any universal remote available. That being said the piece is now bundled with an aluminum remote control as well as Firewire 400/800 USB, RCA cables. The Mytek does not have a 4 pin headphone jack however I do not see that as a major drawback. The Oppo does support Bluetooth, again i would likely never use this feature since all of my music is on a server which would be connected to this device. The Mytek uses the same ESS Sabre 9018 DAC and in the professional version you get the ability to connect a DSD device directly to the DAC which is not available on the Oppo. I have over 500 DSD audio titles in my collection currently so the DSD is a major selling point.
The Oppo has a very nice user interface however the sound is what is most important to all of us in the end. What I am interested in learning is if anyone has performed a comparison between these products so that one can make an informed purchasing decision as to which one sounds best. The $400.00 difference is certainly a point which many may consider significant however if the sound quality is better this is a small amount to pay for that performance. Looks alone are not enough to sway my purchasing decision.
Quote:
Indeed the Mytek is a great looking swiss army knife as well, I think between the two (not including any sound differences) it comes down to preferences of the buyer. Do they want IEEE1394 input (which is awesome idea BTW, HA-1 doesn't have that), do they need 4 pin balanced out (Mytek doesn't have that), do they want a remote (Mytek doesn't have that), which asthetic and level of build quality do they prefer (HA-1 wins that one I think, although I dig the "industrial look" of the Mytek), do they want Bluetooth, etc., etc. Then there is also the $400 price difference which is a pretty big gap and one of the biggest draws to the Oppo for many, how little you spend relative to what you get. Once you start spending $1600 then you get to another level of options. Since they are both 9018, the sound sigs could be similar, I don't know that one, and that would indeed be an interesting comparison, but thank goodness in my case I wanted the features unique to the HA-1, and the $400 makes a difference to me as I will be giving that money to Vinnie at RWA for my AK240 at a minimum (maybe more if there is anything in the Oppo that will improve it affordably, or add an input/output feature I need that I haven't thought of, like firewire .
This is probably the biggest con to buying devices like this vs. separates, less flexibility, so you should make sure that the swiss army knife you choose has all of the blades you need/want, because that is what you are gonna get. The corollary to that is that integrated components are often cheaper due to economies of scale of production, so it may make sense to buy one of these and then add a seperate component to replace one stage. A very common example of this is in the world of receivers, where you could spend $2-3K on a TOL receiver with balanced pre-outs that was %95 percent as good in the pre-amp/processing department as a $10K pre/pro, and probably had more features to boot where most pre/pros typically didn't have as many bells and whistles (like mp3 decoding, etc.). You could then add an excellent amp and come out WAY ahead on budget.
I don't think that we are there yet in the head-fi world as you don't see a proliferation of integrated units (once you see some in Best Buy, we are there!), but Oppo may be one of the companies that help to get us there, as if their product sells well enough, I expect other makers(Sony, Pioneer, Denon, etc.) with integrated units of high quality yet much more affordable than their previous attempts.
Back on topic, FedEX dropped off my HA-1 10 min ago, I will post my unboxing impressions and pics to the thread in a bit.
34 pages and no really helpful description of sound quality compared to mayor amps. Very strange. Maybe the soud quality is not on par with the features.
34 pages and no really helpful description of sound quality compared to mayor amps. Very strange. Maybe the soud quality is not on par with the features.
As far as sound quality is concerned I know of several major recording studios using the Mytek and a number of friends that have them connected to music servers in high end systems that rave about the performance. I am not knocking the Oppo as I have not auditioned it however until someone does a professional review documenting the output with oscilloscope waveforms of the product I would not be inclined to make a purchase of this product. The price is great and the features are certainly good as well. These two items do not necessarily make a great sounding product ! I will wait until the verdict is in to see how this product really operates according to the test data.