Another Oppo question: I understand that it will play all (nearly all?) formats. For Region encoded DVDs, will it play all regions or does it need to be "hacked" first?
Another Oppo question: I understand that it will play all (nearly all?) formats. For Region encoded DVDs, will it play all regions or does it need to be "hacked" first?
Ken says there's an easy third-party hack for that.
I've bought two OPPO players over the years and for what it's worth, DVDs played all regions with no hacks involved. It'll automatically play NTSC or PAL discs with no setting changes whatsoever. OTOH, blu-ray needed the hack. And even when the player is hacked for all region blu-ray, you still need to make manual changes if the disc you want to play is Region 2 only or Region 3 only. It's a simple change but a minor pain in the ass if you need to select the different region to play the blu-ray. I don't know if that's changed for the most recent OPPO players because I don't own one yet.
For the money they’re asking, that’s disappointing.
Which would be useless to me as my amp has only analog ins and looking at the Sony's specs, it's only coax in/out and HDMI. Not sure what you mean by "audio out only HDMI interface." It's an HDMI out, plain and simple, and I can't connect that to my amp.
Also, because of the OPPO's high end DAC, I feed all my other devices through it (it has multiple inputs), so that adds up to: my 4K TV's audio (separately from the video, which goes out of the OPPO, but the audio feeds back in the opposite direction); my Bell Fibe TV box; and my Apple TV 4K box. The Sony doesn't appear to have anything to handle this...of course, you'd not likely do what I do with the OPPO because the whole reason is to use its DAC.
AT $150, I'd certainly question the quality of its DAC (which, if you have a good one elsewhere in your chain won't matter...I don't). I've come to realize, over the past three years, how much of a difference having a great DAC makes.
I'm not suggesting it isn't any good...I'm sure it is very good, especially for the price. But between no analog outs, what is likely an average DAC at best, and what I'm sure is a lesser quality mechanism and laser, I'll still stick with my OPPO. I can't speak with any personal experience for the OPPO UDP-203, only the higher end 205, and I think that this Sony is catering to a different market than OPPO's 205....
But thanks...I knew lower priced 4K players were coming (if not out, as they clearly already are....my bad!), but didn't realize they'd also support SACD, as that's not something many multi-disc players do at that level...at least AFAIK(new...clearly mistaken!).
Cheers!
J
Last edited by jkelman; 11-25-2017 at 07:10 PM.
John Kelman
Senior Contributor, All About Jazz since 2004
Freelance writer/photographer
Yikes. Sorry, man. One consequence of CFS is that between fatigue preventing from checking my posts as I should (and which I do manage - better, I hope - with my writing!) and apple autocorrect, If I happen to look back at posts, I see a bunch of "whoopsies."
I've fixed my post below. Thanks for being kind![]()
John Kelman
Senior Contributor, All About Jazz since 2004
Freelance writer/photographer
I think I have a non-north American blu ray somewhere. I'll check it (if I can find it!) with my UDP-205 and see how it does.
But I don't buy much BR media from outside North America, so this is a very minor issue to me, even if not fixed. And as before, for me, the quality of the DAC makes OPPO a terrific choice for me, since I don't have a DAC anywhere else in my relatively simple chain.
John Kelman
Senior Contributor, All About Jazz since 2004
Freelance writer/photographer
John Kelman
Senior Contributor, All About Jazz since 2004
Freelance writer/photographer
I question the architecture which has the DAC in the player. Or video processing either. If the Oppo can receive external hdmi or digital inputs containing HD audio formats, and decode and perform the DAC function, then cool. I thought the DAC in the Oppo was dedicated to the player.
“I’m not giving in an inch to fear” David Crosby
As I’ve stated here before, for most rooms it doesn’t make sense to place a DAC before the room correction in a processor or high end receiver. The processor will have its own high end DAC which Oppo doesn’t have a monopoly on. Now if the processor had digital out which was fed back to the Oppo, that could make sense. I have my 4k TV feeding my elite Pioneer receiver via ARC. My 4k Apple TV goes to a HDMI 4K splitter which decouples the audio (up to 7.1 LPCM) and this audio is HDMIed to the receiver. The Apple 4k video goes directly to the TV. My Sony UBP X800 HDMI Audio also goes to the receiver. The receiver uses 32 bit 192khz processing for decoding, room correction and then DAC. The Pioneer Elite had very good DACs in it for when I bought it. The current model has the same DACs as the OPPO. When I update my receiver it will handle 4k video and Dolby Vision, and the SABRE DAC. The receiver handles every digital format including DSD from SACDs and DVD-A MLP. Never thought Sony would make a player which would play DVD-A and pas the MLP over HDMI, this one does. Since Oppo dropped HDCD, Oppo holds no special position in the format handling.
“I’m not giving in an inch to fear” David Crosby
I hear these DACs are the real shit:
http://www.schiit.com/guides/choosing-a-dac
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
I have a Bitfrost Multi that I use in a setup in our living room (for Squeezebox and Chromecast Audio (which the kids love)), and it's a great value. In fact, I recently replaced a Rotel power/pre amp I had hooked to it with a Musical Fidelity X-Pre (which I had the caps replaced to remove an annoying hum) and a big ol' B&K power amp. Nice Tube Sound!
But the best thing is that when something does't work, I can say "What's wrong with this Schitt", or "Wow, this Schitt sounds great!"
"Always ready with the ray of sunshine"
Is they're really that much variation in DAC's? It would seem fairly straightforward, from a technical point of view, to convert digital audio to analog audio. I mean how many ways are there to do this?
Last edited by Guitarplyrjvb; 11-28-2017 at 02:10 PM.
There are many ways. And some of them work better than others. You can believe John when he tells you he can hear the difference.
Oh yeh, what have you designed? What technical point of view? I’m not reading technical here. However the greatest advance was the delta sigma convertor. It’s accuracy however is determined by the digital clock that clocks out pulses that have width proportional to the signal. When representing a highly oversampled signal, only a linear phase filter is needed to integrate the pulses into the analog signal. The rest of the design is of electrical consideration, with high quality tubes being a great way to handle the dynamic range. Tubes drive cost.
“I’m not giving in an inch to fear” David Crosby
I know some of you audiophile types get all testy when talking about the performance differences in gear. It does seem clear that the DAC in your phone is of lesser quality than the one in a stock CD/DVD/BluRay player. That's probably because the size/specs of the chip has to be compromised to fit into the phone. I don't doubt that some of you audiophiles can here the differences in gear that costs many times that of consumer hi-fi gear. I'm just wondering whether, once you go beyond portable digital devices, that the differences in a DAC are noticeable to most non-audiophiles like me!
I imagine that there aren't many DAC chips out there and that most manufacturers of audio gear use the same ones from a rather small group of what's available. The development and marketing of DAC chips can't be that lucrative of a business, can it? Certainly not in the league of processor chips.
“I’m not giving in an inch to fear” David Crosby
^^ I'm referring to the DAC itself, not the rest of the signal chain.
Wow, I ordered the UDP-205 yesterday, and it arrived today. Now to figure out how to hook everything up.![]()
That's some delivery service. Where'd you order it from???
Yeah that's pretty incredible. Especially this time of year!
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