Any suggested good CDP of £1000 range ?

[CnoEvil]

That said, the future is almost certainly streaming, so that is a good suggestion, but the learning curve is quite steep...

...tell me about it, but it is manageable, especially if you have "know it all" kids! 🙂

 

[Chewy]

That said, the future is almost certainly streaming, so that is a good suggestion, but the learning curve is quite steep...

...tell me about it, but it is manageable, especially if you have "know it all" kids! 🙂

Ha! My little one is still at the "let's put jammy toast in the DVD player" age, so I still get to be the know-it-all for a while! 🙂

 

[Inter_Voice]

What is your proportion of listening between SACD and CD?

Well, I spent 75% of my listening on SACDs and I got more SACDs than CDs. As you know the music quality from SACDs are of different league.

I listen mostly to jazz, vocals, classicals, some blues, acoustics but seldom on rock music.

 

[stephennic]

Hi,

I would still consider a dac, take your oppo in a hifi store and see if they can put the dac on it. Some places may let you borrow for the weekend. I have only heard the rega dac which some say is nearly the same standard as the rega saturn, which maybe be better than the oppo. Or try a cheaper audio-gb NFB-2 or audiolab dac thats reviewed in what hfi.

Cheers

Steve.

 

[Inter_Voice]

Thank you folks for the very good suggestions and discussions on this subject matter.

As I mentioned before the major draw back of using an universal player for 2 channel music playback is due to its relatively high jitter noise on account of interaction with its video signals. The periodic jitter of my OPPO is about 3 picoSeconds and about 7-10 pS when playing. (see this plots http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/blu-ray-players/756-oppo-bdp-83se-special-edition-universal-blu-ray-player.html?start=1).

As a matter of fact this is actually quite low but not low enough when compare with very high end CDPs. What I will most probably do is to change the master clock of OPPO. This is the cheapest option and it should have noticeable improvements. As far as I am aware of high jitter will blur out the sound staging and make the HF and LF not as clear.

I have searched the web and found Fidelity Audio does sell a product called "C2 Permium clock" for CDPs at a reasonable price. (see this link http://www.fidelityaudio.co.uk/clocks.html )

Most probably I will also fit FA's SPower Low noice voltage regulator into my OPPO as I have also noticed this product in their web. ( http://www.fidelityaudio.co.uk/spower.html )

It appears to me the modification is not that difficult (and there is an instruction on the web on this DIY job) and the cost is about £220 in total. May be worth a try before I consider other more expensive options that I am not sure they can be better than my existing player.

I will report back when it is done 😉

 

[tino]

Congratulations on a job well done! I think the opamps and caps made the bigger improvement, more so than the clock.

I love this quote from that reliable source of information .. t'internet ...

Before worrying about 2 ns of jitter, you need to remove the other sources of “jitter” in your listening room. To do this: Stop breathing, stop your heart, cool your body down to room temperature, seal the room from any outside air, turn off that hot Class-A amp, and disconnect your speakers. That’s all!

 

[Inter_Voice]

Tino I generally agree with you that changing the opamps and caps could have better effects than changing the clock.

You may wish to know that I changed the analogue PC board's original opamps with three LM4562 / LME49720 Audiophile opamps; changed its original capacitors to Oscon SEPC Polymer for Sabre DAC decoupling; changed to Rubycon ZA/ZLG decoupling capacitors for opamps; Evox MMK capacitors for DC blocking; and a number of similar made capacitors for main PSU, analogue PSU etc. Totally 22 capacitors were changed.

I think changing the original master clock should also have good effect as the default clock only used a 27MHz crystal, two caps and a resistor to provide the clock frequency. The frequency generator I used is of more sofisticated design and it can provide the circuitry with very stable and accurate frequency as well as having extremely low noise level.

Lastly I wonder why the CDP manufacturers do not use high quality capacitors in their products in critical circuitary as they are not that expensive after all when compared with the cost of the entire unit. The 22 caps and opamps I changed costed less than £50. It has been proved that using good quality capacitors can have very big effects on the unit's sound quality reproduction.

 

[Inter_Voice]

Since my last post I have now finished with the work of my OPPO's upgrade.

I have changed the master clock and provided the clock unit with independent power supply unit. I changed 3 op-amps in the 2 channel board with better quality ones as well as changing a number of capacities in the 2 channel PCB and the PSU board with better quality capacities.

Having hooked up the OPPO with my Leema Tucana II and Spendor SA-1 speaker (on stands) together with subwoofer MJ Acoustic Pro50 MKII after the upgrade work I was stunned by the big improvement in sound quality. I noticed the entire soundstaging has moved back thus making the entire music bigger. The location of each musical instruments can be clearly identified, left and right, back and front with extremely good music separations. There was noticeable increased in reverberation and I could feel the music was more live. Details of the high frequency range has been increased but I do not feel fatigue on long time listening. The mid range is now more sweet and natural while the base is more tight and extended. I can hear more details that I had not heard before the upgrade and the entire background is much much cleaner than before. As a whole there is a big improvement of sound reproduction in all respects. My wife can also hear the big improvements in the music and she wonders how this is done.

The player has been used since yesterday and the improvement is more noticeable than a day ago. I will continue running in the unit until it settles in, hopefully in two to three weeks' time.I think for the time being I am totally satisfied with my present system and they can survive for quite some time before I consider another upgrade :bounce: :dance:

 

[MajorFubar]

Well if they did, they'd probably put the price up by £500 not £50 🙂

When you take things apart, it's amazing how many cheap components and shortcuts you find in what is supposed to be audiophile gear.

My PM66 KI amp wasn't cheap when new, and is supposed to be an audiophile amp, yet when I had reason to take it apart recently because the right channel died, I was shocked to find that the culprit was a cheap and nasty ribbon-cable, of the type you find in desktop PCs, linking the pre-amp board to the (analogue) volume-control pot. So much for specialist components and gold-plated this-and-that when part of the audio signal's critical path is a cheap consumer-grade ribbon-cable...

 

[the record spot]

There aren't any universal players at the £1k price I think, so you might try and seek out a used Denon DCD3930, which was around £900 about five years ago, the aforementioned Arcam, or you could get a Cambridge 751BD which is the current all formats player at £800. The Denon you should get for about £300 or so, try Ebay and Gumtree and the occasional dealer who can offer an ex-dem one lying round in a store room somewhere. I think Jimmy Hughes (another hifi reviewer) used one of these for his own system at one time. Performance was, from memory, excellent by all accounts. I'd hit the patient button and wait for one of those to come round. Equally, if you love the Oppo, stick with it.

The DCD3930 are outdated product and I don't think its performance is better than my existing OPPO 83NU edition. The DAC chipset Denon used are not as new. Cambridge 751BD is very similar to OPPO 95EU and I also think its performance is very closed to my 83NU or may be just a little bid better in some areas (with question mark). The major draw back of using an universal player for CD playback is due to its relatively higher jitter noise. Actually I can consider making modifications to OPPO's mater clock but it will cost around £300. May be using a DAC can overcome this shortcomings and a more direct approach. The only problem is how to identify a decent DAC which is better than my OPPO?

Obviously, being about five years old, the 3930 is out of date in terms of product line, but not necessarily performance. Whether it's better or worse than the Oppo is up to you to hear, if you ever do hear one. That Jimmy Hughes used one rather says the jitter issue is non-existant in terms of audible detraction (I don't think it's the problem people claim it to be - I used a Sony BDP-S370 a few times and it's absolutely fine for CD playback and that's a basic player, so your Oppo will be just as good if not better).

For £1k, as stated, you can either go for a standalone CD player, but there are few with SACD as you know, or you can stick with what you have. I wouldn't lose any sleep over jitter and if you want to mod the Oppo, well...

As for DACs, none will permit direct play of SACD (licensing issues I think and I'm not sure about the HDCD or DVD-A elements either), but Emotiva's XDA-1 at £349 is meant to be brilliant. You can spend more, but Item Audio let you try the thing at home for two or three weeks and all you pay is shipping, so you can try and buy, or return for a refund with little cost impact.

And as for identifying, rather like the jitter issue, blind testing is the way to go.

 

[Craig M.]

jitter is a non-issue. blind listening tests have shown that the levels have to be very high for it to be audible.

 

[Anonymous]

Well if they did, they'd probably put the price up by £500 not £50 🙂 When you take things apart, it's amazing how many cheap components and shortcuts you find in what is supposed to be audiophile gear. My PM66 KI amp wasn't cheap when new, and is supposed to be an audiophile amp, yet when I had reason to take it apart recently because the right channel died, I was shocked to find that the culprit was a cheap and nasty ribbon-cable, of the type you find in desktop PCs, linking the pre-amp board to the (analogue) volume-control pot. So much for specialist components and gold-plated this-and-that when part of the audio signal's critical path is a cheap consumer-grade ribbon-cable...

To me, this merely confirms everything I thought about cables of any description. Fit for purpose is as good as platinum plated jewel encrusted.

 

[Inter_Voice]

I cannot comment on the effect of internal cables especially when it is of short length but changing capacitors and opamps with better quality ones proved to have huge effect on SQ. I am not sure if the change of master clock has huge effect or not as I made the mod in one shot. The fact is that after the mod there is a big jump in performance in SQ 😛

 

[Inter_Voice]

jitter is a non-issue. blind listening tests have shown that the levels have to be very high for it to be audible.

I still think a good low noise master clock should improve the 2 channel performance. Tonight I tried to find out how the video performance of the OPPO was affected after changing the master clock. I used 2 blue ray discs for the testing, one is AVATAR and the other is IRON MAN 2. I compared the OPPO with that of PS3 as well as the picture quality I had remembered before the upgrade. TBH I was totally stunned by the the video quality the upgraded OPPO produced. I can now see all the very minor details in the picture when I watch the LCD TV screen at very close proximity. The edges of the picture are so smooth and everything is very solid without any background noise even at the black background. The video is very steady even at fast movements in IRON MAN 2. The overall video quality is far far better than PS3. The color are so vivid and clear that my wife asked me if I have bought a new blueray player !! As a matter of fact my sole objective of upgrading the OPPO is to get better 2 channel sound quality. In result it is very surprise to find that the video quality has a big jump in performance which is really a bonus. :dance: :cheer: