[njdeadhead]

I am looking for a good DVD Audio/Video/SACD Player for about $300 to $500.  I was looking at the Denon DVD-1930CI with out the mods from under wood hifi at first. What do you all think.

-Brian

[James Romeyn]

I heard the Oppo circa $160 universal player a week or so ago at a great audio gathering w/ about $36k worth of ancilary gear.  Heard it alone, w/ an outboard tube DAC & vs. my circa $1250 TRL-Sony 900. 

Sure my TRL ate it's lunch.  But I'm kinda thinking you can't beat the Oppo for a universal player till you jump above your price point.  Even alone it sounded darn good, kinda shockingly so till it was compared w/ the DAC & vs. my TRL.   

I'd love to see if anyone here knows of something better at your price point.   

[Airborn]

I heard the Oppo and I think my $300 Onkyo DV-SP502 universal player sounds better but they weren't in the same system. I'm happy with the Onkyo for the few dvd-audio/SACD's I have.   

[njdeadhead]

O one other thing I am also going to use it for video. That is why I was looking at the Denon DVD-1930CI has the Faroudja video engine.

[Airborn]

I'll amend my reply since you are interested in video performance too. I think my Onkyo Dv-SP502 is fine for audio and video at this price point, but I have read and been told the Oppo is much better at video.  In fact some reviews compare the Oppo video performance to SOTA players. So if you want very good video and just passable audio, the Oppo may be the ticket at <$500. I don't think you'll find much better unless you go >$500.

[lifewithmusic]

I agree with Ribbonspeakers.  I think the Oppo is very hard to beat, even at the $1000 price point.  I had one in my system for a week.  It out easily performed in audio and video a $450 Sony DVD player (both with CD and audio on DVD movies).  The picture was outstanding. 

I think the next jump up from it would be the Denon 3930ci at about $1000 street price.  Mod it for a couple grand and I understand you have a player close to the best there is for a fifth to a tenth fo the cost.

The other things that help probably any digital is balanced power and a variac or other product to restrict line voltage to nearly exactly 120 volts. That seems to my eyes and ears to be a permanent improvement to players at all price points.

[Dan Driscoll]

If you are not committed to an upscaling player, other options are the Sherwood-Newcastle SD-860 and SD-871 universal players. I have the 860 and am very happy with both the audio and video performance. The 860 has an ESS Vibrato decoder and the 871 has a Faroudja chipset. They have the same audio section, which IMO is better than the Oppo*. They also have excellent bass management and time alignment set-up options, as good as or better than many quality processors and receivers. Crossover settings are in 10 Hz increments, go down to 70 Hz and are separate for the mains, rears, center and subwoofer. Time alignment (speaker delay) can be adjusted for each rear speaker, the center and the subwoofer, in 1ms increments. Level adjustments can be set independently for each speaker, including the fronts.

I don't have an HT receiver or processor. I let the 860 do all of the audio and video processing and decoding, then run the 6 channel analog outputs into an Audio Refinement Pre-5 multi-channel analog preamp.

*I have never heard them in the same system.

[Russtafarian]

For audio, the Oppo player sounds pretty good for the money in stock form.  When modded, it jumps from pretty good to really good.  I just finished perfoming some simple mods to the Oppo and it now sounds better than my modded Sony NS999ES (which just died). 

Running it directly into my amp and using the remote volume control, I'm hearing deeper into my CDs than I've ever heard with the Sony.  I'm sure removing the preamp has something to do with it, but the Oppo's DAC chip has a lot to do with it.  At the moment, it's even beating the pants off my modded SB3, which leads me to believe I still have work to do on the SB3.

My advice? Get the Oppo.  When you can afford it, get it modded.  If you're handy enough with a soldering iron to swap parts, mod it yourself.

Russ

[gitarretyp]

Russ,

Could you give an overview of the mods you performed to the oppo?

[Bob Reynolds]

If you are willing to increase you budget to $650, Crutchfield still has some Denon 3910s available (as of last week).

I own the 3910 and I've run it through the HQV Benchmark DVD. It has excellent video. I compared it to a Marantz 7600. The Marantz failed almost every video test. The 3910's audio is quite good compared to my Arcam FMJ CD23T.

++++++++++

Concerning the Oppo... Wasn't one of their products reviewed and measured in the last Stereophile (May 07 issue)? Based on that, I wouldn't consider it.

[geowak]

Hey NJdeadhead

NJ is cool, spent a little time around Princeton University. What a beautiful campus!

My reccomendation goes to a used Marantz DV6400 or DV6500 or DV6600.

I had both the 6400 and an Arcam CD72T. I thought the Marantz played CDs
better than the Arcam. Also it SINGS with SACD. It has an awesome picture through the video section. You can get the 6400 for $300 to $350. The newer ones go for a little more.

My 2 cents worth (He he)

[James Romeyn]

If you are willing to increase you budget to $650, Crutchfield still has some Denon 3910s available (as of last week).

I own the 3910 and I've run it through the HQV Benchmark DVD. It has excellent video. I compared it to a Marantz 7600. The Marantz failed almost every video test. The 3910's audio is quite good compared to my Arcam FMJ CD23T.
++++++++++
Concerning the Oppo... Wasn't one of their products reviewed and measured in the last Stereophile (May 07 issue)? Based on that, I wouldn't consider it.

Bob
Did you mean Benchmark "DAC"?

The end of Atkinson's lab test mentioned the Oppo appears to shorten Hi-Rez word length at its SPDIF outputs.  Is it correct that this impacts only DVD-A discs when the Oppo is used w/ a DAC having hi-rez input capability?  This seems a narrow use impact, but I could be wrong.

As I wrote, I heard the Oppo plugged into a tube DAC, $8k Atmasphere pre, $8k/pr Parasound JC1s & $18k Roger West Sound Lab stats.  The Oppo/tube DAC was surprisingly good.  My TRL-Sony 900 killed it in a direct comparison, even just plugged in, that's one of the better Red Book sources.

[Russtafarian]

Russ,

Could you give an overview of the mods you performed to the oppo?

Here’s what I did to my Oppo 970.  Keep in mind I’m a part-swapper, not an engineer.  I’m open to other ideas that will improve performance, but please don't bash me because I should have done X or didn't do Y.

Power Supply Board:  All electrolytic capacitors replaced with equivalent value Panasonic FMs.  The 22uF 400V filtering cap was replaced with two paralleled Erse 11uF 250V polypropylene caps.  Caution: if there’s a chance the player will ever get plugged into a 220 volt line, the value of this cap should be at least 350V.  The four rectifier diodes were replaced with MUR860 hexfreds.

Main Board:  All electrolytics replaced with equivalent value Panasonic FMs except for the 10uf values, which are Panasonic FCs.  The four DC voltages coming into the main board (+3.3vdc, +5vdc, +9vdc, -9vdc) were each bypassed with Erse 11uF caps.  This step was recommended to me by a friend who designs switching power supplies for a living.

Analog Output:  I removed the four 10uF caps that couple the left and right output from DAC to opamp and opamp to RCA out.  The L & R DAC outputs (taken from where the 10uF caps between DAC and opamp were removed) each go through a Erse 11uF cap to a Lundahl 1527XL transformer.  You have to use the cap otherwise DC from the DAC will saturate the transformer.  Each transformer output is connected to a new RCA jack mounted on the back panel.  I put a 10k resistor and 100pF polystyrene cap between + and - of the RCA jack. The RCA jack negative tab is connected to ground.  The other analog outs (LR, RR, C, LFE) I left alone.

The Panasonic caps and hexfreds were from Digikey.com and cost about $50 total.  The Dale metal film resistors and the polystyrene caps were from mouser.com and only cost a few dollars. The eight Erse 11uf caps were from diycable.com and cost about $50 total.  The two Lundahl transformers were from kandkaudio.com and cost about $75 each.  The transformers are the most expensive parts but really made a big difference in the sound.  So yes I spent more on parts than I did on the player.

The only difficulty I ran into in disassembly and reassembly was the small ribbon cable that connects the mainboard to the laser assembly.  After disconnecting and reconnecting this cable five or six times when removing the mainboard, the contacts got mangled and I had to get another cable from Oppo.


Russ

[Bob Reynolds]

If you are willing to increase you budget to $650, Crutchfield still has some Denon 3910s available (as of last week).

I own the 3910 and I've run it through the HQV Benchmark DVD. It has excellent video. I compared it to a Marantz 7600. The Marantz failed almost every video test. The 3910's audio is quite good compared to my Arcam FMJ CD23T.
++++++++++
Concerning the Oppo... Wasn't one of their products reviewed and measured in the last Stereophile (May 07 issue)? Based on that, I wouldn't consider it.

Bob
Did you mean Benchmark "DAC"?

No, the HQV Benchmark DVD is a video test DVD. It's a great tool when comparing DVD players. As I said, the Marantz 7600 was very disappointing relative to the Denon 3910 for the same dollars.

http://www.hqv.com/

The end of Atkinson's lab test mentioned the Oppo appears to shorten Hi-Rez word length at its SPDIF outputs.  Is it correct that this impacts only DVD-A discs when the Oppo is used w/ a DAC having hi-rez input capability?  This seems a narrow use impact, but I could be wrong.

My comment was regarding its analog output. I like JA's undithered 1KHz sinewave graph. Here's one from the Olive Symphony:

http://stereophile.com/mediaservers/406olive/index4.html

Compared to the Rega Apollo: http://stereophile.com/cdplayers/606rega/index4.html

As I recall the Oppo was much worse than the Olive.

[G.Michael]

Here’s what I did to my Oppo 970... 

Nice description, Russ.  It's obvious you've done some "homework."  Looks like a project I could handle.  One question: Any trouble mounting the transformers... enough space?

[James Romeyn]

I nominate Russ for DIY-tweaker honorary PhD of the board!  Good work!  I'd love to hear your DIY hot-rod kit!

[Russtafarian]

I nominate Russ for DIY-tweaker honorary PhD of the board!  Good work!  I'd love to hear your DIY hot-rod kit!

Hey, I'm standing on the shoulders of giants here.  If it wasn't for the help of folks over at the Lab and other audio diy boards, I wouldn't be getting into all this mischief.  It would be interesting to compare it to some other players to get a point of reference.  I may have to hit up a few of my buddies in the LA/OC Audio Society to do that.

One question: Any trouble mounting the transformers... enough space?

I can only speak for the 970, but there's plenty of room for caps and trannies in the left rear of the chassis, behind and beside the transport.  Also lots of wide open back panel space for mounting RCA jacks behind the transport.

Russ

[njdeadhead]

Thanks for all your help.


-Brian