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Snood, refer to post #177 on the SHF! http://www.forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/sony-ubp-x800-universal-player.660223/page-8
Who will replace Oppo?
- Thread starter Clint Eastwood
- Start date
Help Support QuadraphonicQuad:
Back up to $248 on Amazon.
Thanks for the heads up, Clint.
I ordered a second one yesterday, as the man-cave unit keeps making the trip up the basement steps.
We use it to stream movies in the living room.
I got it in November for $127.49 from Target, extra 15% off $149 on a one-day internet sale.
Picked it up same day at a local store.
So I have a pair of these, bought brand new in the box, for less than $300.
Thanks, Sony.
And thanks to the secret shoppers on this forum who share info with the community.
What I'm struggling with is the quality of the transports on these inexpensive machines like the Sony X800 and the impact on sound quality. I did an experiment today where I played the same CD and DTS 5.1 tracks using the coax digital outputs from a Marantz DV9600 (Retail $2100 in 2006) and a Sony BDP-S550 (Retail $400 in 2008.) The D/A conversion was done by a Lexicon RV8 receiver (circa 2006.)
The Marantz definitely sounded smoother compared to the Sony which had what I would describe as that slight digital sounding "edge" that can get fatiguing.
Another thing that bugs me is the problems people report with the X800. I don't understand why this machine can be so dodgy. I have two Sony Bluray players, one of which is internet connected and I've never had any problems with either of them. In fact, I've never had a problem with any Sony product.
I asked earlier if the Oppo 205 sounded better than the Marantz DV9600. Some members said it definitely would given the vintage of the DACs in the Marantz. Well, a followup question would be...How would the sound quality of a more reasonably priced used machine such as the Oppo 103D compare to the Marantz? What about the Oppo 103D compared to the Sony X800? The characteristic I'm looking for is smoothness.
The Marantz definitely sounded smoother compared to the Sony which had what I would describe as that slight digital sounding "edge" that can get fatiguing.
Another thing that bugs me is the problems people report with the X800. I don't understand why this machine can be so dodgy. I have two Sony Bluray players, one of which is internet connected and I've never had any problems with either of them. In fact, I've never had a problem with any Sony product.
I asked earlier if the Oppo 205 sounded better than the Marantz DV9600. Some members said it definitely would given the vintage of the DACs in the Marantz. Well, a followup question would be...How would the sound quality of a more reasonably priced used machine such as the Oppo 103D compare to the Marantz? What about the Oppo 103D compared to the Sony X800? The characteristic I'm looking for is smoothness.
Let me mention a few things...first the D after 103 refers to a video enhancement program and has nothing to do with audio...so you can just use a 103 for any audio comparison...but I don't see how anyone here can give you an accurate answer to your question...they would have to have the same equipment...the same room acoustics and the exact same hearing....it's a very subjective opinion...
I can give you my opinion about Sony players....the older Sony players were...on a whole...much better machines...one reason being that Sony actually made them...now...from what I have heard...they are farmed out and branded with the Sony nameplate..much like other "Sony" products...
Since you mentioned the 103D...let me give you some background about it....after Oppo came out with the 103 and 105...there wasn't really much they could do to improve on them...and it was a time period before 4k was firmly established...so too early to come out with a 4k unit...so they came up with the idea of adding Darbee...which is a processing element...a very clever one...Darbee already had a stand alone unit in the marketplace...unlike other processors it didn't add unwanted artifacts...and with the Darbee addition Oppo used a different chip in the 103D and 105D...so that is the difference in the standard and D models...
You would be the first I have heard from who claim to hear a sonic difference in digital transports. There was a lot of that kind of hype early on during the introduction of CDs with those big, thick, heavy, flywheel type CD platters and upside down laser mechanisms and other ideas that seemed like they were a re-hash of the predominate turntable technology of the day. But this is the only recent comment about digital transports I've run across. But who knows... Ralphie is out there and he firmly believes that some kind of special cleaner he uses enhances the sound of optical disks.
With respect to the sound quality of a Marantz DAC vs the DAC in an Oppo ... I have read more than once that it really isn't the specific DAC that determines sound quality, its is more about how it is implemented in the circuitry overall. Has there been quantum leap in DAC technology over the last 10 years? I would suggest that proclaiming that one DAC doesn't sound as good as another simply because of the vintage of the chip is not something to base a decision on.
leevitalone1
2K Club - QQ Super Nova
The CS alone is worth buying the machine! I will never own another brand , besides, it all is going to be in the cloud soon enough anyway. all tye music and movies, all digital, and no more physical media. Oppo sees that coming.
I am indeed painting around the edges when I speak of the difference in the sound between these two digital transports. In fact, I did a second test where I put identical CD's in each machine, set both inputs at equal levels and got them synchronized to within a second of each other to allow an A/B comparison. In this experiment and with this particular recording...well, I actually preferred the Sony BDP-S550 to the Marantz DV9600. But there are subtle differences between the units.
What is most important is that whatever subtleties I believe I can detect between the transports are program dependent with one not consistently preferred over the other. So I can further split the workload between the Sony and the Marantz with the Sony handling CD, DVD-V, and Bluray while the Marantz is dedicated to only SACD and DVD-A. In the past I had only used the Sony for Bluray audio...The plan was to get an Oppo when the Marantz finally died...So much for plans.
With regard to "black magic" stuff, I used to put those colored disc stabilizer rings on CD's when I had a vintage 1983 Sony player. It did make a difference. But when I switched over to a much better Nakamichi in 1989, those stabilizers didn't do a thing. BTW, my cousin has that original 35 year old Sony and still uses it.
Looks like Pioneer will be introducing its new Elite UDP-LX500 Hi-Res Disc Player later this year. $999.00 is the price.
Let me be the second. I never thought I’d hear a difference either.
During the last Christmas season, I went out and purchased one of the Sony 800’s on sale for a buck fifty. Originally, I planned to have two separate systems in two different rooms. I felt the Sony was cheap enough and would do as a transport on the fly in my Home Theater system, and with my music system, I would take advantage of the analog outputs directly into a pair of active speakers. I didn’t have the Sony player in the system but for a few hours and noticed something was off in the sound in comparison to using my OPPO 205 as a transport. Not sure if was the electronics settling in, I continued to use the Sony 800 on a daily basis for almost 3 weeks. And I put several hours a day on that player. One day at the end of that 3 weeks, I still noticed that something didn’t sound the same as I was used to hearing. So, I swapped out the Sony for the OPPO and couldn’t believe the difference. Swapping the players in and out, I noticed the Sony had a more forward presentation and was quite a bit hard sounding in comparison to the OPPO. On the other hand, the OPPO had a smoother, more laid back sound quality with more separation between instruments. I thought I had been listening to the analog outputs of two different machines. The conclusion I came to is, not all transports sound alike. I really feel that it comes down to the overall quality of the electronics used and how that digital signal get manipulated as it travels through the electronic circuitry. Could be the lack of digital jitter either machines are able to produce. Could be the combination of many things.
In the end, I found it hard to return the Sony player but eventually did. The sound wasn’t awful but the price was very cheap for the features it offered. The one feature I felt I needed to have was Dolby Vision and the Sony player would never get an update to have that ability.
YMMV
I have been through 2 of the previous generation elite players. Both failed to play hi rez stuff repeatedly. I even argued with people about the discs I bought from them were junk and demanded refunds only to find that when playing those same discs in my Oppo 103 they played flawlessly. I was frustrated beyond belief that my 2nd unit, which replace my first was also a piece of shit that didn't work as advertised. Too late to return it, it sits collecting dust and frustration with the other stuff I threw under the stairs. Not even good for a paperweight IMHO.Looks like Pioneer will be introducing its new Elite UDP-LX500 Hi-Res Disc Player later this year. $999.00 is the price.
Maybe this newer version will work more than 3 months....but I will keep looking myself. This coming from someone who has been loyal to Pioneer and have 2 of their receivers purchased in the last few years, one of which was the SC77 elite version that was paired with that POS elite bd player.
Once the Pioneer elite brand was truly an elite product...but they "pimped" the Elite name out on inferior products...some of which were merely rebadged Sharp players...I bought one of those elites...it served my purpose and it played hi rez discs and when I became convinced that I wanted to be in the surround hobby...I bought an Oppo and it was like comparing a Mercedes to a junker….Pioneer continued to sell their "name" to other cheapo companies...I wouldn't trust anything they sell now...
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Not sure what your definition of smoothness is but I will give you my experience. I have owned many disc players since the early 1980’s and can tell you the OPPO UDP-205 is the smoothest sounding player I have ever heard. To be fair though, I have not owned another brand besides the Sony 4K player listed above since I purchased my OPPO DV-970. From there, I only purchased OPPO disc players. I became a beta tester at the beginning for the BDP-93. Other players I have used and tested are the BDP-103 and a couple of others before that and those model numbers are escaping me at the moment. Also, I beta tested their first headphone DAC/Amp too which was their first personal audio product. After that, OPPO used a separate group of beta testers for the personal audio products. To be honest, I was never totally happy on the sound quality of any disc player including all the OPPO players up to the BDP-105D for which I had two of. To my ears, I found the sound quality of the HA-1 not as good as the BDP-105D player that was popular during it’s run.
After I heard the 205, I immediately sold both my 105 beta test models. I kept only 4 other OPPO players. Two of them are being used by family members.
If I were you, I would not be worrying so much about the quality of the transport mechanism in terms of affecting the sound. Any transport including the cheapest computer drive units will read the data bit perfectly just fine. Where there might be a slight difference is in the HDMI clock jitter from the source mechanism, but even that jitter (using PCs/laptops, which are have extremely noisy systems & clocks) is so low as to be negligible for hearing purposes. Those noise artifacts are at least 90- 100 dB down. Sure that phase noise/spectrum analyzers can measure it, but I have a hard time believing any differences would be audible, even to the golden eared folks at the supposed high end audio magazine. I will happy to be proven otherwise, but have yet to see anything close to a respectable listening test demonstrating these differences. Sure, looking at well built machines is visually and mentally satisfying, but we are kidding ourselves thinking that they actually provide an aural benefit in terms of "smoothness" or "digital" or "analog" sound.
As for quantum leap in audio DACs over the past 10 years, I do not believe there have been significant changes. As for ADC/DACs most of the improvements are in high speed DAC/ADC. When I say high speed, I mean speeds in the 500 MHz range & up. Lets face it, in today's world, audio signals in the 20 -20Khz or whatever few 100KHz range are simply not an issue. SNR on high end ADC/DACs is mostly dictated by the thermal noise floor, which is based on bandwidth and doesn't change.
You are correct, the overall implementation on the board is what is important and what will dictate quality. But by quality, I mean mostly SNR & cross talk noise. Unless the designer is making really foolish choices or is actually intent on doing so, frequency response will stay the same.
From what you wrote, I understand that you were using the analog outputs to drive the active speakers. Is that correct or were you using HDMI ?
Using a disc player as a transport would require a digital output. I used HDMI for both players.
Yes, just wanted to make sure.Using a disc player as a transport would require a digital output. I used HDMI for both players.
Just to be clear, I wasn’t using active speakers at the time. As I stated, I wanted to build a second system using the active speakers plus the 205. So, I ended up using both players as a transport via HDMI into a Marantz Receiver, which I used at that time.
That's correct. The reason that DACs which use the same DAC chip can sound different is that the product design on one product may do more audio processing with the chip's onboard circuitry while another (often a more expensive DAC) does some of the audio processing outside of the DAC chip. And then there are DACs which don't use DAC chips at all!
So you really do have to listen to each product (vs. looking up the DAC chip model number on a spec sheet) to determine how each one will sound.
Not very encouraging words. So we've got a company throwing in the towel and another carrying the flag but apparently between their butt cheeks. Maybe Pioneer will surprise us by taking a step back into the glory years with this upcoming player.
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