I'll be shipping her back to California with extreme prejudice...and may make it's foibles my campaign. Wow...I cannot believe some of the things this player doesn't do right. First let me start by saying that Lar is dead on about the sound. Excellent sounding player...cd's are crystal clear and it doesn't take long in the break in to start hearing BIG improvements...sound quality is outstanding...that's where it ends. I'm only going to discuss one problem and you all will feel the pain...
Remember the 1/2 note dropout Larry discussed with us. I believed it was for the first song on the cd only...and for some that's true...however for others it happens on every song or at every break. Absolutely unacceptable. I'm astounded that they haven't been called on it.
I called Oppo today out of curiosity to see if they had solved it and they pointed me to the Beta firmware upgrade online. I installed it.....no difference. Keep in mind that I lugged a TV out of my bedroom to the office everytime I needed to change something (not a flat screen a crt).
OK make it 2 problems I'll discuss.
With every new CD you must once again tell the machine to go into the audio only mode...it takes 5 seconds to actually change...1/2 note drop off followed by depressing the button for the audio only followed by the actual event of the switch to audio only...wow...they can have it! Honestly it's a damn shame because it sounds very good.
If yours is the 980H it has the same glitch as mine...they all do, just ask Oppo. My 981 does not have the same problem, then again it doesn't sound as good.
Just talked with Oppo Digital and their customer service has lived up to it's reputation. The gentleman acknowledged the issue and stated that there is no fix on the immediate horizon and they ofcourse will pay for the return shipping...fast and friendly service. Good company...just wish the player didn't have that glitch because it sounds outstanding...not that the 981 is terrible because it isn't and in fact the 2 channel SACD is excellent...it just doesn't match up to 980...oh well.
BTW...my modified Rotel did outperform the 980 on Redbook and HDCD...thank god or I would have to commit hari kari (is that how it's spelled).
It is similar but like a veil has been lifted...especially when maximized by turning off the video junk.
Still I'd rather listen to the 981 and hear all of the song than listen to the 980 and miss part.
One album I played last night was Jason Moran's Modernistic, he's a jazz pianist and plays quite percussively on this album and many of the songs start with him hitting the keyboard with force...imagine how bad that sounds when you miss the first half note (at least) and there is a little sound that introduces the music...like a little pop or click...I'm telling you it's wholly unacceptable and I'm not sure how they've gotten away with it. If it sounds too good to be true.....
"1/2 note dropout" ... weird, I've never noticed this on my 980.
I do agree it's annoying that the "audio only" mode takes 5 seconds to kick in and won't stay on in between CD changes.
Overall though I'm happy with my Oppo, the price to performance ratio is stunning. It doesn't have quite the finesse of my Rega Apollo but that's mainly noticeable at high volumes and concentrated listening.
Oppo is being totally cool about it and takin' the machine back. Unlike many companies that won't admit when something is wrong, the fella I talked to admitted to the problem and that was that. My systems are going to go through some changes...see upcoming changes in speakers.
I just got a DV-983H with the lastest 06-0430 firmware. I've got the following problems:
1) When using the 'skip' buttons on CDs, it starts late on tracks (about maybe an 8th note's worth) - noticed on "Yes/Fragile" - all tracks that don't fade in. They supposedly did something about this in the prior level of firmware so maybe it was even worse before than it is now?
2) When using the DVD player with a standard TV (component outputs), you can set the "TV Display" to either 4x3 Letterbox or 4x3 Pan/Scan and you get 4x3 Letterbox displayed (can't get 4x3 Pan/Scan showing from the setup menu). But if you use the skip buttons, the display reverts to 4x3 Pan/Scan - independently of what the setup menu says. The 4x3 Pan/Scan looks vertically stretched on a 16x4 DVDs. Really annoying.
Sent them an e-mail waiting for answer.
Other than the user interface problems - good sound and good picture (after tweeking the setup settings a bit on the video).
So I got an answer from Oppo and as you say - they are a class act. Totally up front and helpful.
- They extented my period to return the product 30-60 days to let me further evaluate the product.
- They said they were aware of the second problem and were working on a fix.
- They also said that they thought they had fixed the first problem in a prior firmware release but were still getting indications that folks were having this issue and could not 'guarantee' a fix since they didn't seem to understand the problem yet.
I did some more investigation on another player and got the same truncation on they YES/Fragile CD. However, on this other player they display the track time and interestingly I noticed on this CD just before the start of the track, there's a count up from say -0:02 seconds. Interestingly, there are TWO zeroes (i.e. -0:02, -0:01, -0:00, -0:00, 0:01, 0:02.. etc). They are indexing to the second zero and the song starts just before this at the tail end of the first zero.
I sent this information to them - perhaps it will help them fix the problem. I'll let you know what the say...
BTW - I thinking of back-ending this player with a CI Audio VDA-2/VAC-1. Can anyone speak for what improvement in sound I might get?
Rick, that's the exact configuration I have....Oppo player feeding a VDA-2/VAC-1, although my Oppo is a 981HD. I don't know how much of an improvement there is in redbook playback on your model, but I can speak to what I experienced. The comparisons I'll note are largely against a NAD 541i which was my cdp prior to adding the DAC. The Oppo I found sounded OK, but a little rolled off in comparison, and less transparency. I'll note though that although the 541i had greater transparency, it also had a fair bit of harshness to the treble that was the reason I was looking for an upgrade in the first place.
I noticed improvements right across the board....transparency, depth of soundstage (front to back), frequency extension at both extremes. Instruments and vocals "popped" more vividly. Greater textural accuracy to instruments, especially noticable on acoustic instruments. Less of a "digital" sound overall.
Warning though, the VDA-2 needs at least 100 hrs of burn-in before opening up, and several hundred before it fully relaxes. If you go this route you'll also need to pick up a good digital cable to connect the dac to the Oppo. A cheapo cable will rob you of a lot of the magic of these little silver boxes.