Oppo 203 decoding question

[esimms86]

I can honestly say, if it weren't for the rare DVD-A and SACD authoring these days, and ripping SACD, I can do without the disc spinners most of the time.
Everyone can talk about how good their spinner's DAC's are, but since I use only HDMI between devices analog honestly doesn't mean anything to me. (except analog pre out to separate amp from AVR)
For that matter I can plug a USB stick into the AVR and play up to 512 DSD.

But we all have our druthers. I would rather not be up and down changing discs when I'm trying to relax.
I still believe no spinner will beat the sound I get direct from the pc > AVR via HDMI, but that's JMHO. If it can it's likely beyond my hearing.

Once I was all analog and I had several analog switches, and a total nightmare of wiring. Don't miss it a bit. Still too many darn wires.

I play ALL of my audio and video off of an NAS drive. I also recently upgraded myTV to 4K. I’ve bought a small handful of 4K UHD HDR discs that I’ve ripped to 4K HDR .iso and I’ll probably end up up converting 1080p content to 4K rips. No disc spinning necessary.

 

[mandrix]

After so long of having a 4K monitor and a 2K TV I finally ordered a 4K TV for the audio room.
Slowly but surely this year accumulating UHD discs. Hopefully within the next few weeks the TV ships.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

For that matter I can plug a USB stick into the AVR and play up to 512 DSD.

.

In multichannel?

 

[mandrix]

In multichannel?

Yes, apparently. I have not looked to see if it's converting to pcm. Would have to look at the docs. lol. Or find one and play it and hit the info button on the remote.
Someone gave me files a while back....for testing to confirm what level of DSD it would play,
I don't normally listen to files via USB...in fact never except for these tests.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Yes, apparently.

Will it play mch flac from USB as well? Most AVRs Ive been around wont do mch of any kind from USB.

The function is common on disc players hovever.

 

[esimms86]

After so long of having a 4K monitor and a 2K TV I finally ordered a 4K TV for the audio room.
Slowly but surely this year accumulating UHD discs. Hopefully within the next few weeks the TV ships.

Most excellent. I’m going to hold off for awhile on big spending on UHD discs. I first want to see how my favorite Blu ray videos fare with up conversion to 4K. I don’t have @4-earredwonder, @fredblue, @Quad Linda or @GOS kind of money to spend!

 

[mandrix]

Will it play mch flac from USB as well? Most AVRs Ive been around wont do mch of any kind from USB.

The function is common on disc players hovever.

Well again LMV, I could check the docs, but time spent....well....
Don't take this wrong, ...no criticism implied...
I play 99% from my pc. I don't really care what is does or not play from USB, the DSD stuff was only a test because a friend had passed me some DSD with the lowest to the highest for testing.

No need to get up and put a stick in the AVR when I can play from the pc > AVR.
You could download the Onkyo TX-RZ50 manual and look for yourself. Not worth the time for me.

 

[mandrix]

Most excellent. I’m going to hold off for awhile on big spending on UHD discs. I first want to see how my favorite Blu ray videos fare with up conversion to 4K. I don’t have @4-earredwonder, @fredblue, @Quad Linda or @GOS kind of money to spend!

Shoot. I bet Linda has been collecting so long she probably did not have to Drop A Wad On Quad.
I don't know all about her collection, only things she mentioned.
(BTW @Quad Linda , we know you're REALLY only 30)

 

[Sonik Wiz]

Shoot. I bet Linda has been collecting so long she probably did not have to Drop A Wad On Quad.
I don't know all about her collection, only things she mentioned.
(BTW @Quad Linda , we know you're REALLY only 30)

I think she must be more like 33 1/3.

 

[mandrix]

I think she must be more like 33 1/3.

I stand corrected. lol.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Well again LMV, I could check the docs, but time spent....well....
Don't take this wrong, ...no criticism implied...
I play 99% from my pc. I don't really care what is does or not play from USB, the DSD stuff was only a test because a friend had passed me some DSD with the lowest to the highest for testing.

No need to get up and put a stick in the AVR when I can play from the pc > AVR.
You could download the Onkyo TX-RZ50 manual and look for yourself. Not worth the time for me.

I agree fully. I dont play anything off usb drives in my house. And just stereo in the car. But i know people who want to play mch rips from usb sticks. They always have to use a disc player to do this. Thier AVRs arent capable of it. I thought that may have changed.

Even if you took the time to look it up in the manual you probably wouldant find an answer. Most of the time with AVRs, the usb capabilities arent even disclosed in the specs.

 

[ar surround]

I agree fully. I dont play anything off usb drives in my house. And just stereo in the car. But i know people who want to play mch rips from usb sticks. They always have to use a disc player to do this. Thier AVRs arent capable of it. I thought that may have changed.

Even if you took the time to look it up in the manual you probably wouldant find an answer. Most of the time with AVRs, the usb capabilities arent even disclosed in the specs.

I know that my Marantz AVR will only play stereo via its USB port. Cheapskates. Lol

 

[Owen Smith]

But his observation is really more about the conversion that takes place on the fly, inside his Oppo, when it is set to convert DSD to PCM. I think the best explaination was it is likely due to the specific filters used in the Oppo to remove ultrasonics.

When I had my previous AVR I had my Oppo 95 setup to convert DSD to PCM and then output that over the analogue multi channels. I did that because I had a couple of SACDs (Tubular Bells was one) that came out of the wrong speakers (eg centre but no left channel, it was major) if played as DSD, but converted to PCM came out of the correct speakers. That trumps any conversion loss. That said I did attempt some comparisons which weren't remotely blind or easy to do reconfiguring the Oppo 95, and I couldn't hear any difference. That doesn't mean there wasn't one. I later narrowed the incorrect channels down to the Oppo superdisc, without that DSD came out of the correct speakers on my parents Oppo 93 and as soon as I applied the superdisc the channels were wrong on that too on the troublesome discs (I forget what the other disc was).

Now I have an Arcam AVR31 I output DSD over HDMI and let the AVR handle it. I have no idea whether it sends DSD direct to the DACs or converts to PCM internally, the manual and online documentation do not have any detail on that.

 

[Owen Smith]

But i know people who want to play mch rips from usb sticks. They always have to use a disc player to do this. Thier AVRs arent capable of it.

My Arcam AVR31 can only play stereo from USB sticks or drives. I use my Oppo 95 and 203 to play multichannel FLACs from USB sticks. Annoyingly the 95 can't do gapless playback and while the 203 can it isn't perfect and puts clicks in the file changes sometimes, so I have no one solution for playing files.

 

[barfle]

Still too many darn wires.

I remember video projectors getting RGBS coaxes, an RS232 control cable, plus power. For one component.

Cable management can be a challenge. Three stereo pairs (5.1) from my Oppo plus the HDMI, plus power can turn into quite the plate of spaghetti, and the back panels of most AVRs are probably populated with close to a hundred connectors (no, I haven’t counted mine, but there are a bunch of them).

That said, I accept the challenge. Besides fidelity, I’m looking for operability - I want to accurately play as many different kinds of media as I own. True, I shy away from most tape-based media, but I want to be able to play virtually any disc and any file. Getting up after 20 minutes to turn an LP over is just part of the experience. Getting up after 2 minutes to change a 45 is just part of the experience.

Of course, I don’t tell other people how they ought to enjoy their music. Hell, a lot of the choices I see on these pages barely qualifies as music to me. (And some of the stuff I like is noise to others - I won’t put that on if you’re over for a listen.) But that’s what makes horse races. We can all love different stuff, but the love is all the same.

 

[Owen Smith]

Three stereo pairs (5.1) from my Oppo

I bought a length of 8 pair cable used for recording studios, and then soldered 8 phonos on each end. It was clearly intended for balanced as each inner cable had two signal wires plus ground shield, I soldered the two signal wires together at each end. The entire thing was about half an inch in diameter so very convenient. I used this for my Oppo 95s stereo output as well as 5.1. I originally made it for my Arcam DV137 SACD/DVD-A player.

 

[barfle]

I bought a length of 8 pair cable used for recording studios, and then soldered 8 phonos on each end. It was clearly intended for balanced as each inner cable had two signal wires plus ground shield, I soldered the two signal wires together at each end. The entire thing was about half an inch in diameter so very convenient. I used this for my Oppo 95s stereo output as well as 5.1. I originally made it for my Arcam DV137 SACD/DVD-A player.

I make all my RCA and XLR cables from S-video cable (which is getting harder to find, BTW). The pair can be used for unbalanced stereo or balanced mono. I don’t want to think about how much I’ve spent on gold-plated connectors. But the cables have been trouble-free, and are all just the right length.

 

[par4ken]

The only comparisons I’ve made are dsf to the same files converted first to 32 bit wav and then to 88/24 FLAC. I can’t say that I can detect anything that cries out ‘deterioration’ from the conversion process.

I’ve mainly converted dsf files to FLAC when I’ve wanted to tweak the recording, i.e. EQ.

What do you use for the conversion? Converting to 32 bit makes sense to prevent any possible clipping. With Foobar you have a gain setting, it's more of a guess as to what setting to use. I've often wondered about the choice of 88.2kHz rather than 96kHz. I don't get the "correlation" between the seaming unrelated 1-bit rate and the PCM rate. dBpoweramp can be used for conversion, it outputs 96Khz files.

I've all but stopped doing conversions and now save my SACD rips as .dsf files. Foobar converts on the fly if played from the PC.

Along the way I discovered that better filters than those used by default in Foobar are available. I get good results using those. Best to use the "short" filter and 176.4kHz. Conversion from DSD requires that much of that high frequency noise be filtered to prevent possible aliasing when converted to PCM. Deficiencies in that filtering is one likely cause of any "deterioration".

What I have not yet done is to directly compare the files converted using the better filters to those done with the standard ones and to native DSD. That will have to wait for some other day. I'm much too busy listening to "new" music lately.

 

[Owen Smith]

I've often wondered about the choice of 88.2kHz rather than 96kHz. I don't get the "correlation" between the seaming unrelated 1-bit rate and the PCM rate.

SACD sample rate is 2.8224 MHz which is exactly 32 times 88.2kHz, that's why.

 

[par4ken]

I bought a length of 8 pair cable used for recording studios, and then soldered 8 phonos on each end. It was clearly intended for balanced as each inner cable had two signal wires plus ground shield, I soldered the two signal wires together at each end. The entire thing was about half an inch in diameter so very convenient. I used this for my Oppo 95s stereo output as well as 5.1. I originally made it for my Arcam DV137 SACD/DVD-A player.

It's best (in theory at least) to use one wire for the signal and the other wire for the ground (return) connection. The shield should then be connected at one end only. The grounded end should go to the component with the higher signal level. That is what is done with those "high end" dictional cables. My turntable is wired that way as well.