The Oppo has landed

I really wasn't trying to. I am doing a good job of convincing myself, however . . .

Oh, you are trying to drag me into the pit with you, make no mistake . . .


Interestingly, it appears that the loader on my player crapped out tonight. No matter what I do I just get a "no disc" message after a nasty whining sound. The 83s have had significant issues with their loaders. Oppo has done a bang up job taking care of them for people. I sent an email in, but I will not hear anything back tonight. Maybe if I am lucky it will be unrepairable and they will offer me a 95 instead. I can dream, right?

Yes, you can dream. From what I have read about the tray load problem, it is fixable. But, Oppo might not have the parts in stock, in which case you just never know.

They emailed back a series of things to do, many of which I already did, but I am going to have to go through all of them in order to verify that it indeed is not working. (The whine prior to the "no disc" makes me skeptical that the troubleshooting steps will work; I think that the problem is mechanical.) But the reality is that I am sure it will just get fixed.

At least you still have the PS3 in your system. It can take care of movie-watching duties while the Oppo is off getting its wounds treated.

Interesting review from Secrets on audio performance of both the BDP-93 and BDP-95: Link.

I am impressed by both player's results. Makes me wonder, too, what NuForce hopes to achieve by modding either.

Ironically enough, I just found that review before I headed over here. It is a good start, to say the least.

Just shipped my 83 back today.

I hope the repair is speedy.

The thing I found refreshing about the review is that Johnson Jr. admitted that while there were measurable differences between the 93 and 95, he could not detect a difference when A-B-ing the two. Most reviewers are too afraid to admit to that.

It will be interesting to see if Stereophile will say the same thing. Methinks not.

I doubt so, either.

Of course, Stereophile will not do as thorough measurements, nor will they do any kind of an A/B between the two, other than by memory. But they are always swayed by price (it is difficult to find any negative reviews in their magazine any more, and there is a clear and direct correlation between the price of the equipment and the degree of superlatives with which they lavish it.) But it is hard to argue with the internals on the 95.

I don't doubt for one minute that the 95 is the better player, with the better measurements. It's whether or not those measurements are audible that is the real question. Theoretically, if a person was using a so-so amp, reciever or processor, the lower noise floor on the 95 could translate into cleaner sound. However, I'm guessing that most people buying a 95 will have fairly decent equipment further down the chain, meaning the slightly higher noise floor on the 93 wouldn't make any difference.

And of course that is assuming that the noise floor is the biggest difference. I am still somethiing of a conflicted skeptic; while I do believe that many of the differences attributed to equipment are imaginary or due to differences in playback level, but I am still not convinced that all audible differences are measurable. There are not many friends in the audio world when you are straddling the fence.

I straddle too and I don't feel that I have any right to judge another's opinion anyway, so please share your thoughts. To add to what you've said, I also consider that those sounds we can't hear can have an effect on the sounds we do hear, so even if something measures outside the range of usual human hearing, it can still affect (for good or bad) the overall sound.

Regardless, Secrets updated their article to include the 93NE: Link. It's difficult to determine what would be the better purchase. The article mentions that the NuForce upgrade is user installable. I wonder if is simple plug and play or if it involves some soldering.

I would probably stick with the stock 95. But the shift in measurable distortion from odd to even ordered between the 93 and the 93 NE is significant. Even ordered distortion is euphonic. (Even an ardent vinyl fan, if he is honest, must admit that the second order distortion inherent in the format partially accounts for the pleasing sound of LPs. Of course, the skeptics are wrong in saying that it is the ONLY reason vinyl sounds better, but that is another issue where I straddle the fence a bit.)

I thought that, too, when I read the measurement results. It was almost like NuForce envisioned fitting a tube pre into the chain when they designed the upgraded board. I agree with you, though. It would be a fun musical player to have, but I'm not sure I'd want that sound for things like DVD and Blu-ray.

The nice thing is that unlike Modwright or others, Oppo does continue to support Nuforce-modified players. I just do not think that it is worth the extra money. (Or more precisely, I am not willing to spend the extra money.)


Interesting chain of events with my player: when I shipped it Monday, FedEx said that it would arrive on Friday (today.) I just got an email at 8.00 pm Central from FedEx with a tracking number for its return shipment that contained a message saying that my player was repaired and on its way back. A few minutes after that, I got an email from Oppo saying that they had fixed my player and were shipping it back. So not only did they turn it around the same day (assuming that they did not receive it a day early,) but they prioritzed shipping it back ahead of sending me any details. In other words, they wanted to make damn sure that the player got on its way back to me before they did anything else.

Not only that, but I looked for my original invoice and the upgrade invoice to give them the numbers before I returned it, and the upgrade was actually done in November of 2009. (I did not think that it was that long ago.) When they did the upgrade, they reset the warrenty, but I believe that it was still only for one year. They do not appear to have charged me for anything that they did, so I am only out what it cost to ship it to them.

Good company.

Customer service goes a long way. I'm glad they took care of you.

I will be curious to see what they did. Hopefully I will have it by Thursday.

Weren't they replacing the drive?

Some interesting observations on the Internet regarding the latest Oppos. On the AVS site, some members have reported that the BDP-93 sounds just as good as the BDP-83SE and that, in testing, these same members could not distinguish between the two. Some have then claimed that there are only slight differences between the BDP-83SE and the BDP-95 in testing. Then, Johnson Jr. at Secrets published that he could not hear a difference between the BDP-93 and the BDP-95. From that, one could surmise that all three sound the same; however, no one at AVS has made that claim, nor do I suspect anyone will, at least not anytime soon.

One other interesting tidbit is that Oppo swears that the BDP-93 is a direct successor to the BDP-83 and should have a similar sound signature to that unit, not the BDP-83SE . . . .

There are those, of course who say given the same specs for distortion, they all sound the same. Few of those people spend much time on AVS, however.

I have not been following any threads related to the 93 or 95. It is best to limit temptation.

Oh, they are there. They tend to hang out in the two-channel and audio-only areas. It is folks like that that keep me away from AVS. I have nothing against what they claim and in some regards I think there is truth to their arguments. However, their delivery and incessant need to ram their point of view down other's throats is what keeps me away. That said, those on the other side of the coin are equally as a bad.

From what I have read, you'd be wise to stick with your 83SE. No reason to feel tempted.

Yes, that is what I keep telling myself!

You do need to keep a balanced perspective when thinking about upgrading.

You are truly a bastard. I will have to keep my unbalanced perspective, thank you very much!