New Oppo player for late 2012

[recstar24]

x2, appreciate it man. I could only stand AVS long enough to learn that my Panny was a good display for the money, then I ran out with my eyes covered.

Same here. Once they started talking how power cords affected their black levels...

Eric - again great to hear and i might as well start saving.

[Eric5676]

As expected: Got the NDA coverage response as far as the HDMI inputs question goes. They told me to "ask again later" so that's going to be interesting.

[Dusty Chalk]

Yeah, but I didn't see an HDCD logo...

[Eric5676]

Yeah, but I didn't see an HDCD logo...

Ta da! IThey have HDCD!

Someone asked in 133, confirmed by insider in post 134 of that same AVS thread.

That 105 unit is practically a pre-amp/player the way this is shaping up.

E-sata looks dead.

When asked why E-sata is dead another insider responded:

No eSATA port on the 103 or 105. I can't discuss why

IMO someone under NDA saying that means (hopefully?) something equal and/or better than what E-sata was there for is on these new units instead. My best guess.

Edited September 9, 2012 by Eric5676

[Dusty Chalk]

Probably not enough people were using eSata to justify keeping it in.

[Eric5676]

Probably not enough people were using eSata to justify keeping it in.

Very likely.

[HiWire]

Thunderbolt?

[grawk]

Thunderbolt would be too niche for this. At least until 4k is common.

[swt61]

Lightfoot?

[naamanf]

Lightfoot?

Gordon?

This does look interesting, might replace my PS3 for BD playback.

[Dusty Chalk]

At least until 4k is common.

Which segues into the question (I am going to try to find a phrase to replace "begs the question" every time I am tempted to use it, until I find one I like) -- what connector(s) are they using/going to use for 4k? I thought I saw the Sony was wireless...

[naamanf]

Which segues into the question (I am going to try to find a phrase to replace "begs the question" every time I am tempted to use it, until I find one I like) -- what connector(s) are they using/going to use for 4k? I thought I saw the Sony was wireless...

HDMI

[Knuckledragger]

Does HDMI have the bandwidth for 4K?

[grawk]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=does+hdmi+have+bandwidth+for+4k

apparently as of hdmi 1.4

[Dusty Chalk]

Yeah, that was my assumption -- that it didn't. I mean, they had to change the connector just for USB 3.0...

[Augsburger]

http://www.avsforum....0#post_22384837

TRANSLATION: The Oppo will be recognized (by the PC) as an external sound card to decode all your audio files, including DSD files (SACD ISO or DSDiff files, as offered by some music sites like HighResAudio)

That's credible.

No one's shot it down including the guys in that thread that I know are pretty close to Oppo and under NDAs. The silence speaks volumes.

So website like Blue Coast Records may find a new audience not restricted to the Audiogate and Korg gear. Interesting and potentially a new toy!

[Eric5676]

Not surprisingly, I'm seeing hints that the 105 "might" be a little more expensive than the 95 simply because it's a whole new animal of sorts. It's essentially this "all in one" preamp player type device instead of just being a disc and media file player only.

[HiWire]

Still, I hope it sounds better than the 95, too. Not that I have anything against the 95's sound quality.

[Eric5676]

Odds and ends:

Hi folks. I was the user that made that phone call to Oppo. They basically explained that due to the high cost of licensing Apple codecs, etc., they won't be incorporating AIFF nor ALAC compatibility any time soon on their players. This is a big drawback and almost a deal-breaker for me (and I love the company and own 3 different players, including the 95), specially after spending most of this year ripping my collection to AIFF. The quote above is, however, correct in the sense that one could easily connect a computer to play back AIFF or ALAC files and use the back USB input with (I assume) no issues at all.

[grawk]

Except there are open source codecs available for both aiff and alac.

[Dusty Chalk]

Open Source still has requirements when using for commercial use, which is what this is.

[grawk]

ALAC is released under the apache license, which definitely doesn't restrict commercial use.

AIFF is completely open, and is unencumbered by any licensing restrictions at all

[Eric5676]

I'm amazed someone under NDA could post this but here goes:

The 105 has 2 types of USB input. The first is what people are used to on the 83/93/95 where you hook up a USB drive and the Oppo reads the media files, decodes them, and converts to PCM to pass the audio to it's DAC's.

The 2nd type is a USB audio input which connects to a USB port on your PC and shows up as an audio output device on the PC (think of it as a sound card that connects to the PC with a USB cable instead of plugging into an expansion slot). In this case, the PC has the responsibility of reading your music files and converting them to PCM, then sends the audio to the sound card (which in this case is the 105) to play. So in this case, only your PC would need to know what to do with the AIFF and ALAC files.

Still seeing some warnings about speculation, too, so don't sign off completely on everything yet. I think this person knew they had to put out a potential fire as best possible.

[Dusty Chalk]

Also, they are by no means restricted to whatever they deliver, as they can always fix it in a software update, if someone can convince them to grawk's way of thinking.

[grawk]

I'm just doubting the veracity of the information, because rather than the actual encumbered format (AAC), they listed the two that aren't.