Blu-Ray player for audiophile / videophile?

[CJ2008]

DH is really finicky when it comes to video and audio quality.

He's looking at this Blu-Ray

http://www.amazon.com/OPPO-BDP-103-Universal-DVD-Audio-Blu-ray/dp/B009LRR5AQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405381029&sr=8-1&keywords=oppo+bdp-103

Anybody own it or know the brand?

Any other comparable brands?

 

[Art Nouveau]

Oppo is a small Silicon Valley company based in Mountain View, CA. They make high end, top quality and highly rated, blu ray players. I have the BDP-93, which I believe is the older version of the one you are considering. This brand was recommended to me by an audiophile friend. I cannot explain the technical details, but I can tell you both the audio and video qualities are excellent. It can play discs in just about any video format, store bought and home made. Prior to the blu ray player, I have the DV-981HD DVD player which is also very highly rated. The audio features exceed those offered by the brand names sold by big box stores. It is excellent for listening to high end music CDs.
AN

 

[CJ2008]

Thanks Art Noveau.

DH did a lot of research before focusing on the Oppo.

But I was hoping there may be other brands for him to consider that may be less...expensive

But to hear first hand about the excellent quality helps me feel good about it...and we're saving up for it so it's not to bad and will make the purchase more enjoyable.

Thanks AN

 

[TooPatient]

DH is one of those picky people. He built his own speakers because the ones you can buy (for less than our car cost) weren't good enough. We have 7.2.2 (formerly known as 9.1) in our theater room along with 110" screen and projector.

We bought a bluray player last year for upstairs and DH loved it so much we got another for downstairs. This is after buying one, setting it up, spending a day listening to him nitpick about some little thing I couldn't even see, and returning it for the more expensive model. If there is a flaw (no matter how tiny) he WILL complain about it.

I'll ask him which model it is, but I do know they are Sony. He usually hates Sony but after great heaps of research this is what he wanted. After we got this one set up, I heard no complaints (and boy did he look for things to complain about!).

We had an Oppo dvd player (to play our region 2 stuff) and it was great.... but $$$$. I like the Sony at least as well and DH is thrilled with them.


Oh....
Has your DH heard about Dolby Atmos? It is new but very highly reviewed by all the biggest audiophile people. DH is already getting antsy to replace our stuff with things that will support it. Make sure whatever you get is compatible with this!

 

[CJ2008]

OMG TP your DH sounds just like mine.

Yes, definitely please ask him the model of the Sonys - I'm curious and I know DH will be too.

I don't know for sure if it's Dolby Atmos that he knows about...but it's got to be it because it's too much coincidence: he told me there are 2 versions of that Oppo Blu-Ray he wants to buy...one that supports some kind of new audio thing (for $100 more) and one that doesn't...he said it's some kind of new technology and he wasn't sure if he should spend the extra $ in case it's just a fad...I told him to do it (I mean if you're going to spend $500 why not $600, if that ensures you'll have the latest?) So now I will make sure to ask him that too.

 

[TooPatient]

Here is the short version. I'm not about to type the long lesson on Atmos, bluray players, receivers, and audio/video quality I got in answer (if you're curious, read the various audiophile sites and watch the video interviews -- he basically summed them all up in a couple of hours!):

We have Sony's s790 bluray player. He's gone up and looked at the Vizio screen and also the projector and can't find any sort of fault with the players. They even up-convert our DVDs extremely well.

DH says to wait for the Dolby Atmos supporting players to be available. They should be releasing them in the next couple of months or so. The big technology show for these things is in September (cedia?) so they'll be releasing stuff around that time. He says the Atmos should be well worth it.

He also asks that I ask what sort of receiver you are using and suggests that you can get a great improvement in sound if you have the right receiver... and speakers...
(something about the blu ray player just passing through the information to the receiver and it being the receiver that handles the quality and how it gets to the speakers so the player itself has minimal affect on the sound quality)


Yeah...
My lesson over the last 10 years has been to insist he get the nicer model to begin with. Otherwise we go through the hassle of set up and calibration and re-calibration only to have to take it apart and return it to get the other one and go through the whole set up nightmare over again. This holds true for AV equipment and power tools.

 

[4ever]

My DH just purchased the oppo GDP 130 last month. Technology is to him what jewelry is to me so he spent a good long time researching before making the purchase. Even I have to admit it's pretty impressive.

DH says " it's better than oppo darbee edition " and then told me why for 3 minutes while I zoned out...

 

[CJ2008]

Here is the short version. I'm not about to type the long lesson on Atmos, bluray players, receivers, and audio/video quality I got in answer (if you're curious, read the various audiophile sites and watch the video interviews -- he basically summed them all up in a couple of hours!):

We have Sony's s790 bluray player. He's gone up and looked at the Vizio screen and also the projector and can't find any sort of fault with the players. They even up-convert our DVDs extremely well.

Thanks for the model names, TP, I'll tell DH.
[/color]
DH says to wait for the Dolby Atmos supporting players to be available. They should be releasing them in the next couple of months or so. The big technology show for these things is in September (cedia?) so they'll be releasing stuff around that time. He says the Atmos should be well worth it.

Now would this technology be worth it even if we don't have all the speakers we need to take full advantage of it? (see our setup below) Not to say we couldn't/wouldn't, but just curious if we would HAVE to get more speakers or else it would not matter.


He also asks that I ask what sort of receiver you are using and suggests that you can get a great improvement in sound if you have the right receiver... and speakers...

We have an Integra DTR-6.9 receiver
Bowers & Wilkins CM7 speakers (from what I can see 2 speakers on each side of the TV and 1 central one)
Velodyne Optimum 10 Subwoofer

(something about the blu ray player just passing through the information to the receiver and it being the receiver that handles the quality and how it gets to the speakers so the player itself has minimal affect on the sound quality)


Yeah...
My lesson over the last 10 years has been to insist he get the nicer model to begin with. Otherwise we go through the hassle of set up and calibration and re-calibration only to have to take it apart and return it to get the other one and go through the whole set up nightmare over again. This holds true for AV equipment and power tools.

hahahah I hear you TP. I've learned that too. Mostly, I've learned spend the $ for the latest technology so whatever we get he'll he be OK with longest.

 

[CJ2008]

My DH just purchased the oppo GDP 130 last month. Technology is to him what jewelry is to me so he spent a good long time researching before making the purchase. Even I have to admit it's pretty impressive.

DH says " it's better than oppo darbee edition " and then told me why for 3 minutes while I zoned out...

THAT'S the technology DH was going back and forth on - the darbee...the model he's looking at comes either with it or without it...I told him to get the one WITH it...like I just said to TooPatient, I've learned that's the safest thing to do. Otherwise in 3 months he'll be complaining that he doesn't have it and we NEED to get a new Blu-Ray

Do you think you can bear with another explanation from him and get him to tell you really quick in the simplest terms why it's better than the model with the Darbee edition? (although I'm also guessing it's a lot more expensive than the model we're looking at, so I'm not sure if that would be an option for us right now, but still, would be good to know)

 

[4ever]

My DH just purchased the oppo GDP 130 last month. Technology is to him what jewelry is to me so he spent a good long time researching before making the purchase. Even I have to admit it's pretty impressive.

DH says " it's better than oppo darbee edition " and then told me why for 3 minutes while I zoned out...

THAT'S the technology DH was going back and forth on - the darbee...the model he's looking at comes either with it or without it...I told him to get the one WITH it...like I just said to TooPatient, I've learned that's the safest thing to do. Otherwise in 3 months he'll be complaining that he doesn't have it and we NEED to get a new Blu-Ray

Do you think you can bear with another explanation from him and get him to tell you really quick in the simplest terms why it's better than the model with the Darbee edition? (although I'm also guessing it's a lot more expensive than the model we're looking at, so I'm not sure if that would be an option for us right now, but still, would be good to know)

DH says;
It depends largely on your setup; however the Darbee is probably overkill in all but the highest end home cinema (we're talking $30k+ here before you're likely to see any kind of difference) and you do lose the features of the Marvell Qdeo chip to move to the Darbee edition. The Darbee edition has more configuration for the image, however it only has this on HDMI1 (Not both of the HDMI outs if they are being used for TV / Projector).

The Darbee has almost infinite configurations for image, however if you've set up your TV and / or Projector properly, these are completely unnecessary as the image will already be setup how you want to see it, and you will endlessly chase "the perfect image" which you get as standard with the Marvell Qdeo.

Either player is excellent, however I'd rather save the money knowing my image is configured via the TV to my own specifications, and the Blu Ray player is doing the more important job of decoding the video / audio to output to said TV (& amp for audio of course) rather than the double handling the Darbee introduces to the image.

 

[CJ2008]

My DH just purchased the oppo GDP 130 last month. Technology is to him what jewelry is to me so he spent a good long time researching before making the purchase. Even I have to admit it's pretty impressive.

DH says " it's better than oppo darbee edition " and then told me why for 3 minutes while I zoned out...

THAT'S the technology DH was going back and forth on - the darbee...the model he's looking at comes either with it or without it...I told him to get the one WITH it...like I just said to TooPatient, I've learned that's the safest thing to do. Otherwise in 3 months he'll be complaining that he doesn't have it and we NEED to get a new Blu-Ray

Do you think you can bear with another explanation from him and get him to tell you really quick in the simplest terms why it's better than the model with the Darbee edition? (although I'm also guessing it's a lot more expensive than the model we're looking at, so I'm not sure if that would be an option for us right now, but still, would be good to know)

DH says;
It depends largely on your setup; however the Darbee is probably overkill in all but the highest end home cinema (we're talking $30k+ here before you're likely to see any kind of difference) and you do lose the features of the Marvell Qdeo chip to move to the Darbee edition. The Darbee edition has more configuration for the image, however it only has this on HDMI1 (Not both of the HDMI outs if they are being used for TV / Projector).

The Darbee has almost infinite configurations for image, however if you've set up your TV and / or Projector properly, these are completely unnecessary as the image will already be setup how you want to see it, and you will endlessly chase "the perfect image" which you get as standard with the Marvell Qdeo.

Either player is excellent, however I'd rather save the money knowing my image is configured via the TV to my own specifications, and the Blu Ray player is doing the more important job of decoding the video / audio to output to said TV (& amp for audio of course) rather than the double handling the Darbee introduces to the image.

Thank you so much Mr. 4ever! I know DH was going back and forth on this and this gives us a solid reason to consider and feel OK about not getting the Darbee.

 

[4ever]

No problem CJ! DH love geeking out and recommending man toys.
I hope your DH enjoys his new blue ray player.

 

[CJ2008]

No problem CJ! DH love geeking out and recommending man toys.
I hope your DH enjoys his new blue ray player.

Thanks again. We always get such awesome help here.

Depending on what Mr. TP says about the Atmos technology for our setup, # of speakers, etc...we may also wait until that comes out.