Update 5-25-09....We have the machine in house and have performed the first level of mods on it.......This $175 mod makes the sound so much better it was totally easy to hear on a $300 Sony Shelf system. The soundtrack on Men in Black was was way more open, involving, moving, detailed and dynamic. The picture on this player is the best I have ever seen.....Men in Black DVD on my 42 inch Pioneer Plasma looked totally Hi-DEF.......amazing!
The Swiss army knife of players!!!......and a superb one at that. Oppo has finished Beta-testing their new Blue-Ray/universal player and are now shipping to people on their email list. It will be available to the general public within a couple of weeks. This well built machine will cost $499 and plays Blue Ray, DVD video, DVD-A, SACD, HDCD, CD and well just about anything. Oppo has incredible customer service and did a world's first by having the beta testing be totally public (check out their site for the EAP program results...simply amazing). They are a silicon valley based company (Chinese owned) and have all parts in stock an hour away from me if there is ever a problem with any modded player. However, I have never had a modded Oppo fail. Pretty amazing actually. The picture quality of the Blue Ray output is as good as there is and the up conversion of regular DVDs (using the built in Anchor Bay chip set) is as good as the $1500 latest Denon and amongst the elites in picture quality. And this is stock! The only other Blue Ray/universal player in existence is the upcoming $4500 Denon player (9x the cost) which might have 5% better standard video and will have better audio stock.....however, modded, the Oppo will compete and probably kill it.
It is heavier, bigger and better built than other Oppo players and features a larger much better back lit remote. The audio DACs are the top of the line Cirrus for the two channel out (CS4398) and an excellent 8 channel DAC for the surround channels. The power supply is much bigger and has more filtering on the input and regulation and separation on the outputs. I am sure it sounds great out of the box for the money but a $500 list player cannot have any expensive parts or tweaking in it. The op amps are cheap 5532s and all the power supply bypasses and filter caps and resistors are very cheap ceramics and electrolytics. This is where we come in. I have been modding CD players, DVD players and SACD players since they first appeared. I am constantly experimenting and the latest updates to the Oppo 980 mod make it simply stunning (please see post in Industry Ads section...to be added Sunday night). These latest findings will be put into the BDP-83 making it simply stunning with all audio formats and even improve the video. We have been modding longer than any of the other modders and do many, many things they do not do to make the sound better. We damp parts, shield parts, modify parts, use better parts and remove parts that no one else does.....we spend more time and give you way more for the buck and a much better machine (end of speech....he he).
We will have several mods to the player starting at $175. Even the least expensive mod will make it sound way, way better. Other exotic mods including better output stages, modded discrete regulators, Blackgate caps, EVS clocks, power supply upgrades, etc. will be available. The Oppo has a digital volume control (one of the only DVD players that does) on the remote so you can run the Oppo directly into an amp. One thing we might try is a simple volume control before the output stage that would allow you to use a combo of analog control and remote volume so won't lose any bits of info if you are using the Oppo in a sensitive system and cannot use the 2 volts it puts out (we can also up the output voltage to 4 volts or more). If you are going to exclusively use the HDMI outputs for audio into an AVR then we will have mods that do not affect the analog outs but give you a cleaner lower jitter transport (for both coax and HDMI out)
No, the Oppo does not have a digital in and we cannot add it.....(just for you computer guys)....I know someone will ask this.
We will have an Oppo here shortly (several people already interested) and will have the mods all worked out within 2 weeks after that. We listen to each mod and make sure the player has just the right mods to make it both super detailed and musical....we don't do the exact same things to all players.
Please email or call 831-338-2896 for more info. Yes, we even answer the phone on weekend (sometimes, when we are here and not super busy).
Oppo received 27,000 emails about this player. This player is going to sell like hotcakes, to both the videophile and audiophile. You might want to check out the threads on AVSforum.com. People love this thing stock! What is so cool is that this player can give you the best video available and also play all the high rez formats including the up to uncompressed 24/192 available on Blue Ray. There are many Blue Ray video concerts that have uncompressed audio.....a video with this kind of audio is simply amazing. Check out BlueRay.com and look at the music genre.....over 500 music videos! Spectacular music, sound and concerts.
