Oppo BDP-95 sounds GREAT?

I was lucky to get one of the first batches of 95's in early March, and in my modest setup It has become a stellar performer!, The 95 will take no less than 500 hours to burnin and sound its best, as it stands now in my system. I listen to much more music than before wiether cd,sacd or hirez files and love its musical presentation. Over the months during its burnin Brass gained byte and snares gained clarity and density, bass became impactful and decayed like a dream. The last thing I noticed about the 95 to date is its purity in the high frequencies ( Audiophile Air)and the player is complete now in my book far exceeding my expectations. To sum it up, its truthful in tonality has weight and extention on all frequencies ( none favored over the other) Cant really call it warm or cool, its a neutral player.

Hope this helps!

Hi! did you set the FL/FR option( instead of down mix) out put in the Audio setup to take advantage of the Quad dac's (each stereo channel) for 2 channel playback ? You can use this for the dedicated rca stereo outs as well as the xlr's, also new cables would be a wise choice indeed rca/xlr and power cable. To bypass any video output use the pure direct button located near the top of the remote, it should take care of any video being out put during music play back.And just wait till your 95 hits 500+ hrs of playback before considering any mods!

UHh ! Oh! my 95 has been powered up for just about a year now!. There will be a difference via 2 channel playback since you enabled the FL/FR option, no matter the source movies,usb, sacd, redbook ect.. there is an updated maual of the new features on Oppo's site. keep in mind you where only using one of the two Ess Sabre dac's if you where using the multi-analog outs for 2 channel. If you are using rca cables you now need to move them to the dedicated stereo rca outs( There's no need to move them back using this option as it provides the quad stack for 7.1 on the FR/FL speakers ) and now you tap the second dac chip giving you the quad out put per stereo channel, each chip is capable of running eight channels. one chip was for the 7.1 analog outs and the other for the dedicated analog stereo outs. Now that its enabled you should hear a higher fidelity from the player it really is a super sweet feature. As the other poster said usb on repeat is a great way to burn it in ,also Pandora if you are connected to the internet. Post your findings and enjoy this outstanding player!

Regards Jeff!

The sound staging is was what got me as well! after lots of comparison with my previous frontend setup, I found it difficult to go back. It had just the right amount of leading edge without sacrificing width, height and depth. The 95 is sensitive to powercord and Ic changes, the better the cables the better the sound and careful matching is worth exploring. Have you gotten around to readjusting toe-in and rake? Iv'e found repositioning a must after youv'e gauged the sound after burn-in. The final refinement is coming!post back when it does, I'd say you'll compare it to $5000 and up!

There may be a rumored surprise around the corner for this! While I'm not sure about the details, I do know it has something to do with Apple!

From what others have said about the Venom 3 its a great powercord but I wouldn't hesitate to move up Shunyata's line when budget allows of course. If it competes with units $3000 and up, treat it like a $3000 unit! My intial powerord was Ps Audio's AC3(12awg) which list for around $150, I now us a $699 AC10(10awg) and the improvement is not small in terms of refinement and tonality and don't worry about price, the best cord is the best cord period regardless of cost. As for rake, this is leaning the speaker forward, backwards or perfectly leveled to further time aligning of the presentation, this is assuming of course your speakers have out riggers or spikes. As for the rule of 1/3's, I use it myself for speaker placement its fantastic, it can be a pain to adjust them for best sound , as my speakers are 6ft tall (120 lbs) and have 6 spikes per base! I know what you mean by large speakers .On another when budget allows try some new Ic's, this could really take things to the next level.

Any acoustic treatments?

The 95's usb input is no slouch! and taps right into the Ess sabre dac's from mp3 up to 192/24 yielding playback that's nothing short of stellar. I have to say my prize recording is Ivan Fisher's Mahlers's 2nd Channel Classics sacd, but out of curiosity I down loaded some free hi res samples from a few sites Linn, 2L and Hd Tracks put them on a usb stick and latter that day out of sheer astonishment I purchased Eiji Oue's Rachmaninoff's Symphonic dances on the Reference Recordings label and it's now the second best( if not a tie) thing I've heard recorded period!

AVS forums has tons of info on that subject!

"I think there's a new flagship from Oppo coming that will include inputs to the DAC to make it an all-in-one media centre. A bit like the Ayre I guess"

The Ayre has no digital input!

The 95's usb is a fantastic digital input and is already an all in one media centre and preamp to boot, just add a small 7 or 10" monitor and a external hard drive and your set for high rez files. At this point I'm not really sure where Oppo could improve on the 95 besides minor tweaks which may have nothing to do with sound & video. I hope they prove me wrong! But they struck gold with the 95 " Can you say synergy"