chuckflhp
Well-known Member
I was reading these other reviews of the BP-83 Special Edition and started to wonder. Maybe I hadn't given it a fair shot. There seems to be a lot of people who are really going nuts over this upgrade. So I tried to look at possible reasons I wasn't hearing what the others were. I'm really not getting this I thought. Were they doing anything different than I had?
Both guys mentioned burn in, which I had not done.When I checked this out it was straight out of the box. Maybe the burn in could play a part . I've had equipment that sounded the same 5 years later as the day I took it out of the box. And the complete opposite. Maybe this would help it. So I put a DVD-A in and hit repeat. For a week.
I still used it, but if I wasn't watching it it was on repeat. And no sit down real critical listening. Finally, yesterday I had a couple uninterrupted hours to sit and listen again. Same discs. And I have to be honest, it made a significant difference. My previous complaints simply were not there. It is much clearer, and the mid range seems to have tamed down quite a bit. I compared it this time to a Denon 2910 and 3910 and of course the BDP-83 Standard Edition. It has better detail and less grain than the 2910, and definitely in the 3910's league on both counts, But the presence still seems lacking. It seems to be somewhat better than the Standard in that, but I never thought that was a strength of it. Nor do I now with either Oppo unit. The 3910 pretty much stomped them both with DVD-A and SACD playback. I am being made to understand now that this technologically is a much better transport than either Denon though and it doesn't have to be this way. The Oppo should sound better, and it can. More on that later.
My Special Edition does sound better than my Standard now. But, and it's a big but. Do I feel it's worth $300 for the upgrade? Or a $400 outright jump? No way. Not for a $500 player.Don't get me wrong if you can afford a $10,000 power cord then by all means get the Special Edition. It is better. You would be foolish not to, But I stand by my original opinion, proportionately it's just not worth it. If this player was 3 times it's price and cost $1500, and the Special Edition was $2,700 there would be no question.
There are still people that to them the difference between $500 and $900 is a lot of money. And I am a firm believer in the law of diminishing returns. A $400 increase and a lot of what they did was simply cleaning up the signal path? They actually REMOVED several caps and such. The DAC's are better, But without the rest of the cleanup I seriously doubt you would have been able to tell the difference. I'm reading a lot of comments that the Standard Edition with even minor mods($160) will out perform a stock Special Edition. But they do go on to say that the modded Special Edition is truly amazing and in a whole different league.
But like you were hearing it for the first time? What were you listening to before? Words like surreal, exemplary, remarkable. Seriously? Are you saying this in comparison to the standard edition? Or overall? Because I thought that was a nice sounding unit and it played BluRay. A true universal player. Definitely the best universial bang for the buck by light years. But there were definite trade offs for the convenience. I know I have heard several different high end dedicated DVD-A and SACD players that just plain sounded better for multichannel. IMHO Who Knows? Maybe mine is broke.
And if this is so revolutionary you really shouldn't listen to the NuForce version. They are the company that helped Oppo with the analog redesign. And it's supposed to be a not subtle improvement of the SE. It's $1295 http://www.nuforce.com/hi/products/oppo_bdp83se/index.php . And oddly enough the things they are saying they improve are the thing's that I feel are the deficiencies of this unit. Modwright- same thing. And you can say of course that modders and upgraders have a vested interest in promoting their products and services.
Ric Shultz at Electronic Visionary Systems is really doing some work on these. Please take a look at what he has to say. He gives a very detailed explanation as to what Oppo did for their "upgrade".
http://www.tweakaudio.com/EVS-2/83SEversus_83.html
He even gives some of his tweaks away. Ric is also talking to Oppo about the feasibility of switching the DAC's. Using the 32 bit on the multichannel, and the 24 bit quadrupled on the stereo. Much like Denon chose to do on their new universal player, the DBP-4010UDCI. At $2000 it's not cheap, but seems to be more focused on the multichannel enthusiast.
As most have said this Special edition means nothing if you use HDMI. And someone asked earlier, I believe it was Chris, if you use the analog, would you hear a difference? Without a doubt.
this would make a difference. It has to, you will be using a completely different digital and analog stages . The transports the only thing that doesn't change. It's up to you whether you like it or not, but it will be different.
I want my player to play it's quad or multichannel at least as good if not better than it's stereo, and maybe a modder or more money is the only way to get that.
And finally, for the record, I don't care how well it plays stereo. I prefer multichannel and will go to some pretty absurd lengths to avoid 2 channel if I can.
I will be keeping my SE. It will also be leaving in a few days for some modding and tweaking.
Want me to let you know how that goes?
:banana:
Both guys mentioned burn in, which I had not done.When I checked this out it was straight out of the box. Maybe the burn in could play a part . I've had equipment that sounded the same 5 years later as the day I took it out of the box. And the complete opposite. Maybe this would help it. So I put a DVD-A in and hit repeat. For a week.
I still used it, but if I wasn't watching it it was on repeat. And no sit down real critical listening. Finally, yesterday I had a couple uninterrupted hours to sit and listen again. Same discs. And I have to be honest, it made a significant difference. My previous complaints simply were not there. It is much clearer, and the mid range seems to have tamed down quite a bit. I compared it this time to a Denon 2910 and 3910 and of course the BDP-83 Standard Edition. It has better detail and less grain than the 2910, and definitely in the 3910's league on both counts, But the presence still seems lacking. It seems to be somewhat better than the Standard in that, but I never thought that was a strength of it. Nor do I now with either Oppo unit. The 3910 pretty much stomped them both with DVD-A and SACD playback. I am being made to understand now that this technologically is a much better transport than either Denon though and it doesn't have to be this way. The Oppo should sound better, and it can. More on that later.
My Special Edition does sound better than my Standard now. But, and it's a big but. Do I feel it's worth $300 for the upgrade? Or a $400 outright jump? No way. Not for a $500 player.Don't get me wrong if you can afford a $10,000 power cord then by all means get the Special Edition. It is better. You would be foolish not to, But I stand by my original opinion, proportionately it's just not worth it. If this player was 3 times it's price and cost $1500, and the Special Edition was $2,700 there would be no question.
There are still people that to them the difference between $500 and $900 is a lot of money. And I am a firm believer in the law of diminishing returns. A $400 increase and a lot of what they did was simply cleaning up the signal path? They actually REMOVED several caps and such. The DAC's are better, But without the rest of the cleanup I seriously doubt you would have been able to tell the difference. I'm reading a lot of comments that the Standard Edition with even minor mods($160) will out perform a stock Special Edition. But they do go on to say that the modded Special Edition is truly amazing and in a whole different league.
But like you were hearing it for the first time? What were you listening to before? Words like surreal, exemplary, remarkable. Seriously? Are you saying this in comparison to the standard edition? Or overall? Because I thought that was a nice sounding unit and it played BluRay. A true universal player. Definitely the best universial bang for the buck by light years. But there were definite trade offs for the convenience. I know I have heard several different high end dedicated DVD-A and SACD players that just plain sounded better for multichannel. IMHO Who Knows? Maybe mine is broke.
And if this is so revolutionary you really shouldn't listen to the NuForce version. They are the company that helped Oppo with the analog redesign. And it's supposed to be a not subtle improvement of the SE. It's $1295 http://www.nuforce.com/hi/products/oppo_bdp83se/index.php . And oddly enough the things they are saying they improve are the thing's that I feel are the deficiencies of this unit. Modwright- same thing. And you can say of course that modders and upgraders have a vested interest in promoting their products and services.
Ric Shultz at Electronic Visionary Systems is really doing some work on these. Please take a look at what he has to say. He gives a very detailed explanation as to what Oppo did for their "upgrade".
http://www.tweakaudio.com/EVS-2/83SEversus_83.html
He even gives some of his tweaks away. Ric is also talking to Oppo about the feasibility of switching the DAC's. Using the 32 bit on the multichannel, and the 24 bit quadrupled on the stereo. Much like Denon chose to do on their new universal player, the DBP-4010UDCI. At $2000 it's not cheap, but seems to be more focused on the multichannel enthusiast.
As most have said this Special edition means nothing if you use HDMI. And someone asked earlier, I believe it was Chris, if you use the analog, would you hear a difference? Without a doubt.
this would make a difference. It has to, you will be using a completely different digital and analog stages . The transports the only thing that doesn't change. It's up to you whether you like it or not, but it will be different.
I want my player to play it's quad or multichannel at least as good if not better than it's stereo, and maybe a modder or more money is the only way to get that.
And finally, for the record, I don't care how well it plays stereo. I prefer multichannel and will go to some pretty absurd lengths to avoid 2 channel if I can.
I will be keeping my SE. It will also be leaving in a few days for some modding and tweaking.
Want me to let you know how that goes?
:banana:
