Cambridge Audio 4k UHD player

[bigboss]

The manufacturer's name has now changed to DONGGUAN DIGITAL AV TECHNOLOGY CORP LTD. They still retain full ownership for the manufacture of past Oppo and CA products.

 

[JMacMan]

Wow! fantastic detective work - kudos.

I'm very happy to stand corrected, as I really only want to know the truth of the matter - the evidence is hard to deny and I will give the Global Sales manager the benefit of the doubt as he may simply have been repeating what he has been told or believes, without knowing the full facts.

Having said that, this opens something of a can of worms, with both players using the same Mediatek motherboard and built in the same factory, what else is the same, or different one wonders.

And who is copying who? Is anybody actually copying anybody, or are they simply two different design houses, using the same motherboard, and with the machines made in the same convenient chinese factory, but with different power supplies, transports, audio and video circuitry/calibration etc

And so how does one pick one over the other?

Certainly WHF identified sonic and visual advantages in their tests of previous Oppo and Cambridge models also using/sharing the same motherboard, with the advantage going to the Cambridge - whether that will hold true for the latest models is anyones guess.

From my POV I'm leaning towards the Cambridge, as from the sales team at Cambridge with whom I enquired, and similarly with Oppo, when playing SACD's and using the player to decode the DSD stream and convert to LPCM, if there is a mismatch in the frequency output and the DAC I am using, the Cambridge will upsample, and the Oppo downsample - a minor point, but one in favour of the Cambridge for my purposes.

And purely personal, I prefer the look of the cambridge and the remote control as well, hence leaning more towards it than the 203.

Interesting times indeed in terms of who makes what and where, and what if any differences actually exist.

Thanks again for the brilliant detective work...

Cheers

 

[bigboss]

Not sure about SACD as I don't listen to them. But given that the Cambridge Audio CXUHD is a transport only, not sure it will do anything to audio. I'm assuming you'll be using HDMI.

 

[JMacMan]

Not sure about SACD as I don't listen to them. But given that the Cambridge Audio CXUHD is a transport only, not sure it will do anything to audio. I'm assuming you'll be using HDMI.

Yes - HDMI. I have no need for analogue audio outputs so won't miss them. If the lack of them leads to a slightly better picture and/or video over the Oppo 203 as Cambridge claim, so much the better.

The issue is that my DAC will only accept 48,96,192 khz etc, and only LPCM - no DSD support. Most Bluray players will internally convert DSD to LPCM - but many, like my current Sony, will only output it at 88.2 khz - in which case no sound. So I need a player that will either upsample to suit my DAC (which Cambridge sales support claim it will do) or even downsample to match the DAC (as Oppo claim their machine will do).

But I'm thinking it might be more appropriate to actually borrow a player to try at home before buying as I have a reasonable collection of SACD's and want to be able to play them, and sales departments have been known to get it wrong.

Cheers

 

[bigboss]

Good luck with your demos! *good*

 

[davidf]

Quite surprised to read through the Cambridge UHD player review to find out that WHF think is it overall better than the Oppo. Seems odd that with the Cambridge being based on the Oppo, you’d think the Oppo would be better - I can only presume that Cambridge have done something differently to the player if there is a difference.

Having just bought a UHD TV, I’ll be selling my BDP103 and looking out for a good UHD player, and preferably a multi-region one for Bluray as I have quite a few Region A discs that either aren’t available on the UK or are better than the UK release. I also need DVD-A and SACD playback too. Maybe I should be looking at the Cambridge...

 

[bigboss]

Both players are made in the same factory and share parts. The CXUHD is only a digital transport and lacks any DACs or analogue outs. So I can't see how either picture or sound can be affected.

 

[davidf]

Both players are made in the same factory and share parts. The CXUHD is only a digital transport and lacks any DACs or analogue outs. So I can't see how either picture or sound can be affected.

A lot can be said for purely digital sources like Innuos servers etc - 10 year’s ago everyone wanted purely digital DVD transports because they looked better. The fact that the Cambridge has no analogue could possibly work in its favour...