A few weeks ago I received an OPPO DV971H DVD player for evaluation.
Here is OPPO Digital's home page.
If you have not heard of this unit,
here is a thread on AVSForum with most of the information on it.
It is a $200.00 retail, upscaling DVD player that delivers great video over DVI connections
Quite simply, I was blown away by it's picture quality right out of the box.
I was using a Pioneer DV-S755Ai that I had modded extensively. Rebuilt power supply. Black Gates in place of the video coupling caps. Lot of dampening material on all surfaces. The OPPO had better picture quality using DVI than the Pioneer did using my expensive component cable with Slipstream Bybees and WBT NextGen connectors.
If it looked this good stock, I wondered what it would look like with some mods?
I contacted OPPO Digital and received great support from them. A lot of manufacturers would not think about working with a modder.
I have rebuilt the power supply and worked on the DVI output section. I am very pleased with the results.
OPPO has just released a new firmware upgrade that removes some of the problems earlier versions had with some displays and program material.
Right now I do have to say the picture quality of the modded, updated OPPO through DVI is the best I have ever seen from a DVD player. It is very close to the best HD material broadcast over Discovery HD or INHD. It is a LOT better than most of the HD material from the major networks.
I will be finishing up the mods this coming week. I will be adding an IEC connector for aftermarket power cables. I will also be rebuilding the audio section.
The OPPO will output audio through coax and optical digital connectors. It also has analog outputs. It will decode Dolby Digital and DTS internally. It will also play DVD-A. If you are going to use DVD only for a HT source, you could use the OPPO through it's analog output and an analog multi channel preamp for a very clean sound.
I hope to offer the power supply rebuild, DVI section, and digital audio section mods for about $500.00. There will be different levels of mods to choose from.
The analog audio section rebuild will cost a bit more. The stock unit uses 3) 4558 dual op-amps. I plan to replace them with 6) AD-825s. There will be other extensive reworking of the analog section.
I plan to isolate the coaxial digital output with a pulse transformer. A Bybee Purifier can be added to the digital circuit that will work on both coaxial and optical outputs.
As you can probably tell, I am very excited about this unit and it's performance. After the mods are completed, I plan to send it up to Seatlle so Audio Circle's own resident HT expert, Bubba, can evaluate it. I believe Al Garay, who also lives up there has a stock unit to compare it to.
If there are any other AC members who have an OPPO and would like to compare the two, please get in contact with me. I would like to send it out to maybe two others to see how it does in different systems.
FWIW I am using a Hitachi 57S500 that has been ISF calibrated for each input. All of the HT components are plugged into an Equi=Tech Son of Q power conditioner. Audio is run into a modded Panasonic SA-XR70 with all VMPS speakers.
