Topic: Oppo 970 follow up...

[Nick's Picks]

I've had a bunch of time to play with this deck.  Despite the reports of what resolution it does/doesn't pass via S/PDIF..., the deck sounds really good.


thats all to report.

today, I just got a DAC that costs 10x what the 970 does.  I can do a quick A/B between the analog output of the Oppo and the digital output of it into my Grace m901.
you know...its not exactly night and day.  More like shades of twilight.
the Grace bests it.  But not 10x better by a long shot.  Bigger soundstage.  more depth, space, air..etc.  but still, its splitting some hairs...be them thick.


The rest of my system is fairly revealing, and I was expecting night and day differences between the sources.

Oppo 970hd or Chaintech 24/192 sound card digi output > Grace M901 > Hydra custom IC >
Odyssey Stratos monoblocks > Hydra speaker cables > Martin Logan Sequal 2s.

fairly simple and straight forward.  Super detailed. 

[PeterE]

I've had a bunch of time to play with this deck.  Despite the reports of what resolution it does/doesn't pass via S/PDIF..., the deck sounds really good.


thats all to report.

today, I just got a DAC that costs 10x what the 970 does.  I can do a quick A/B between the analog output of the Oppo and the digital output of it into my Grace m901.
you know...its not exactly night and day.  More like shades of twilight.
the Grace bests it.  But not 10x better by a long shot.  Bigger soundstage.  more depth, space, air..etc.  but still, its splitting some hairs...be them thick.


The rest of my system is fairly revealing, and I was expecting night and day differences between the sources.

Oppo 970hd or Chaintech 24/192 sound card digi output > Grace M901 > Hydra custom IC >
Odyssey Stratos monoblocks > Hydra speaker cables > Martin Logan Sequal 2s.

fairly simple and straight forward.  Super detailed. 

Thanks Nick for the report.
Please explain in more detail your comparison. Was your source 24bit?  Did you go analog out of the Oppo into the Grace vs SPDIF out of the soundcard into the Grace?   thats the comparison that makes most sense since as we know the Oppo truncates & downsamples to 16/44.1 out of the SPDIF.  If you went digital out of the Oppo into the Grace I'd certainly expect it to sound worse because of the truncation. 

[Nick's Picks]

ok..
what I did do for this was just redbook tests.  analog out from the oppo and digi out from the oppo.  both into the 901 (which takes an analog input as well as digital).  that way it was just the push of a button to go from oppo DAC to Grace DAC.

[Chuck]

I'm in the market for a DVD player. Can anyone comment on the DV-980h? I know a lot of people like the DV-970HD.
What are the real differences? It looks like I can get the DV-980h for $135 from OPPO on eBay.

[Nick's Picks]

buy first
ask later

whats wrong w/you?

[Chuck]

buy first
ask later

whats wrong w/you?

I may do that. It seems like a good deal. 

[Tim]

the 970 is a nice deck Chuck - sonics aside I like it a LOT more than my Toshiba 3960. It's still a light deck but it's better built than the Toshiba and has never given me any issues. The Toshiba used to choke on discs quite a bit.

sonically I think the analog outputs are really good. I still run my bel canto dac but the Oppo can hold it's own

frankly, I like Nick's advice - buy first, ask later

[chris]

Hi Nick -

Any thoughts to the SACD output on this deck?  I hear you on comparing m901 as I had one once and did NOT find it 10x better than my cheapo Sony DVD/SACD deck. 

Hope all is well out East.

C Evans

[Nick's Picks]

afaik, the SACD output is actually converted to PCM @ 24/88.2 and then to analog from there.

I dont like the fact that there isn't a 1bit DAC in there straight up...., but still, it sounds good.  I'd need a preamp and a known *good* SACD deck to really tell.  I haven't gone that far w/it yet.

hope all is good out west.
:-)