Oppo or not ??

[rsmt2000]

I am all digital and stream music from pandora and spotify. Want to pick a universal player which can play CDs, DVD, Blurays and stream from a media server. I plan to get a roku stick or WD Tv live player and may be even an apple tv:).

Just wondering if I have to get an OPPO or any other bluray player from SONY or samsung will do?. I see that there are very religious supporters of OPPO but not sure if it is worth the dough for me in the sense that it adds any value from a audio perspective.

Can some one talk to me into or away from an oppo 103 please?? :-)

If it helps: planning to get a samsung 8500 series 3d plasma smart tv. I have Ascend Towers with RAAL for my LCR.

- Ron

[Kisakuku]

103 is nice, but unless you need some specific feature it has, a Sony S5100 would do the job just as well and for a lot less. From an audio perspective, Pandora's 128 kbps and Spotify's 160 kbps streams will be your biggest limitation anyway. (If you have a paid subscription, the bit rates are higher.)

[Peabody]

I am inclined to agree with Kisakuku, even though I just purchased an oppo 103D. The Sony S5100 will play pretty much anything you need, and is a great deal at $100. I got the 103D mainly because I wanted to try the Darbee and the split A/V on the dual HDMI outputs. It's an excellent player but probably overkill unless you are looking for a specific feature.

[natetg57]

The Oppo will play SACD and DVD- Audio discs. I really enjoy my surround discs from Beck, Porcupine Tree and others.

[Kisakuku]

The Oppo will play SACD and DVD- Audio discs. I really enjoy my surround discs from Beck, Porcupine Tree and others.

The Sony will play SACD as well.

[sourbeef]

I love my Oppo 103, but it remains a little bit buggy to me for such an expensive player.

[pegleg]

I've had two Oppos (one is downstairs now) and I got it for the music: Music is just much better with it than with any other DVD player which I've used for Cds.

[DavidD]

I love my Oppo 103, but it remains a little bit buggy to me for such an expensive player.

What sort of bugs have you encountered?

[Sam1000]

There is no contest here with Sony and Oppo 103. With $100, you can buy 5 sonys for the price of one Oppo :-). I have been using my sony s380 for close to 3 years now and I'm very happy with it.

Pegleg, what connection are you using to play CDs? HDMI/coax/Analog?? I have used HDMI for mostly Blu Rays/DVDs/SACDs and occasionally CDs. (I stream my music using squeezebox).

For Audio, you have to step up to Oppo 105. At $1200, Oppo could be providing value there sine it can also be used as a pre-pro. However for that price or less, there are many dedicated DACs that can give Oppo a run for the money.

[curtis]

Sony vs Oppo....

if you want to do DVD-A, the it is Oppo, as Sony doesn't support that format.

[rsmt2000]

Just wanted to update here ...

I picked up an OPPO 103 last weekend and have been playing with it since.

First I played Avatar 3D version. To me it DEFINITELY looked like an upgrade from the image from my sony ps3 slim. I made sure I switched the same disc from ps3 to oppo a few times to check if it is a placebo.

Then I played Casino Royale and Tron Legacy etc.. With these discs, I really did not see any significant difference in the picture quality. some one in an review mentioned that with OPPO the picture quality will be same as a $100 BLU ray player for 98% of the discs. I think this is the case here.


FWIW, My wife and my Mother-in-law ( who is a complete novice - no offense meant:o ) mentioned that she could see the difference in image quality between OPPO and ps3 right away only with AVATAR.

I am not a professional reviewer with $$$ calibration devices and my test is as dumb and stupid as it could be as it is not a double blind test - but that is what I found.


In the AV world where there is so much hyperbole I think OPPO is doing something better- but for most of the folks and in most of the situations the added expense of $400 - $500 may not be worth it unless they are looking at some other value metric than the picture quality alone.

I myself am going back and forth to keep it or return it.

-Ron

[pegleg]

Pegleg, what connection are you using to play CDs? HDMI/coax/Analog?? I have used HDMI for mostly Blu Rays/DVDs/SACDs and occasionally CDs. (I stream my music using squeezebox).



HCMI. Sorry I failed to mention that. I'll always use HDMI when I have the connections.