The Oppo has landed

I received an email this morning that my copy had shipped. With tax, it cost me $28.34. Guess I need to find myself a player now.

You just opened the door into a larger world . . .


In between lengthy bouts of playing ME2, I finished Deadwood. Season three was unquestionably the best; they really ratchet up the tension in the later episodes. What a crying shame that it was cancelled -- especially now that the sets have been torn down. We will never see the end.

I was very sad when I found the series was cancelled indefinitely. Had there have been a fourth season, the story would have revolved around the fire that destroyed the saloon.

On the other hand, it means that I get to start The Walking Dead now. Hopefully that series does not get cancelled.

There were some conflicting stories around that one. Before the first season concluded, stories had circulated that AMC had renewed the show for a full second season. AMC quickly denied that assertion, claiming that they were still considering what to do. Frankly, I think the story was leaked prematurely. From what I have heard, a second season is confirmed.

I will be interested to hear what you think of the show. It is a bit weak at times, but for a zombie show (and a series at that), I think it is done well. I was also impressed with the boundaries the show pushes, especially given that this was aired on network television.

I watched the first episode last night. It was a mixed bag, especially when it opted for the wake-up-in-a-hospital-post-apocalypse opening. But it improves by the end of the episode.

The first season story follows the story in Book 1 of the graphic novel series. To that end, it's your fairly standard set up. One unfortunate aspect is that one of the more interesting storylines isn't followed because it is addressed in later books. It can make for frustrating viewing because you'll be anticipating that thread to be picked up and it is not. However, as I said, for a zombie series, the show is well done, but it is not without its problems. I don't want to give anything away, but I will be interested to see what you think of one of the plans that the characters come up with.

Well, if I can stop playing ME2 I should get through it pretty quickly. That is a pretty big caveat, however!

This is probably dirty pool since you live in Canada, but I just entered a contest to win a BDP-95:

http://www.avguide.com/contest

Maybe if I win we can have a talk about my 83SE!

Good luck!

I did get my SACD for Texas Flood. His first album does have some production limitations compared to later albums that keeps it from being a true sonic marvel, but it sound as good as that album can. It is very detailed and generally more warm-sounding than the older CDs. It really gives me hope for how "Tin Pan Alley" and "Little Wing" are going to sound, whenever they get around to releasing those albums. (Especially The Sky Is Crying -- that could be a helluva long wait.)

I also received my copy. I've listened to SACD layer on my dad's system, but I have still to listen to the CD layer on my system. To be honest, I wasn't particularly blown away. That said, my dad's system is relatively unfamiliar to me and I do not listen to it every day. There were a few gems though. I thought "Lenny" sounded very good.

Indeed. Like I said, the whole album simply does not have the sonic potential of the later albums, so keep your expectations in line. And get an SACD player for your own system!!!!

Indeed. I am struggling with what to get. The Oppo is the easy option (with very nice two-channel outs), but might I get better performance out of a dedicated two-channel SACD player? The player, ideally, would go into a two-channel system so that I can mate it with my Moon amp. I want to be sure that I get a player that will downmix multichannel content properly (for those discs that do not have a two-channel mix).

I have also read that the Oppos decode SACD content at 96 KHz when using analogue outs. Does that affect real-world performance, or just theoretical performance?

Not true. If you have the player set properly it will decode in native DSD without converting to PCM first. Some people do not think that there is any difference, but I am still in the unscientific minority of those who believe that sampling rate affects more than simply the frequency response -- I think that the astronomically high sampling rate of SACD provides a smoother analogue waveform, and results in less harsh sound. The trick with the Oppo is that if your HDMI cable is hooked up to a device that does not support DSD, then it will convert the DSD to PCM no matter how you have the player set. So if like me you have your HDMI cable hooked directly to your display, it will force PCM. The solution is to make sure that your display is off or the HDMI cable is unplugged prior to powering up the Oppo. (I leave my display off during any high-resolution audio anyway since the fan noise from it is too loud.)

So, the Oppo only decodes SACD at 96 KHz when converting to LPCM? I was under the impression it decoded at 96 KHz even when outputting native DSD over analogue. Some people are claiming the only way around that is to use HDMI. I quickly checked the Oppo manual, but couldn't find anything to confirm either way.

Incidentally, the new firmware for the 93/95 series supposedly allows users to force DSD even when the HDMI cable is connected to a device (e.g., display) that does not support DSD. Not sure if Oppo released a similar update for the 83.

There is a new firmware available for the 83 which I have downloaded, but not installed yet. Not sure if that is part of it, though.

There is no 96 khz DSD. If you are talking 96 khz, then the signal has already been converted to PCM. There is only one sampling rate for native DSD (2.8 mhz.) From all that I have read the Oppo does indeed decode native DSD.

Gotcha. I misunderstood what people were saying, or they weren't explaining clearly. Let's go with the latter. I can understand why you would not want to change the sampling rate like that -- that is a huge difference!

Are there any inherent dangers with running DSD? I have heard of people popping and blowing speakers, but I cannot understand why that would happen unless they were switching between DSD and PCM on the fly, which would cause a massive frequency change. Or, they were sending a digital signal that the receiving device could not handle. But over analogue, the conversion would have already occurred in the Oppo, so the amp would be merely receiving and amplifying the signal. Am I missing something?

Nope. The analogue outputs have nothing but an analogue signal coming out of them. They may have been trying to pass the raw DSD bitstream to a receiver/processor that could not handle it. Raw DSD, PCM, DTS, Dolby Digital, MLP, etc are all equally bad when played through speakers at any kind of volume!

Thanks.

Four episodes in with The Walking Dead. The second episode was much, much better than the first, but the fourth episode was really a standout. Not only did it have a very interesting and unexpected resolution for the Mexican standoff (pun intended,) but it ended with a real bang. It was a great reminder for the audience that they are indeed watching a zombie show, and not to get too attached to any of the main characters!

Depending on your expectations, you may be let down by the last episode. For whatever it's worth, I think it works.

I will likely finish it in the next couple of days. I did pick up Tron and Tron: Legacy yesterday. (I only picked up the latter because Target had a very good discount if you bought them together.) I have not seen Legacy yet and I am not expecting very much, but I watched the original last night and the disc looks outstanding. (The bulk of the film was shot on 65mm, and while any effect shots that utilized optical compositing do look very grainy, the "real world" sequences look amazingly sharp for an Eighties film.)

I didn't care for the original, so I haven't bothered with the remake.

I did watch Triangle and I liked it. I thought the on-ocean special effects were a bit weak, but otherwise I thought it was well done. It quickly turned from being a typical slasher or haunted ship horror into one of suspense. The real horror was that Jess could not break the cycle and had to accept the consequences of her failure. I gethered from the ending, though, that she hadn't given up and would continue on with the cycle to look for a solution.

It appears that NuForce is no longer making a NuForce version of the 95.