Oppo UDP-203

In what way was the improvement in sound with the new power supply?

I bought my power supply from Oppomod in Korea, Jae Hong designed and built. It came very quickly and is beautifully built. Works great.

Dan

When I purchased my Oppo 205 when they first became available, it was a significant upgrade for me over my Sony S9000ES player with respect to SACD performance.  However, the 205 is completely outclassed by the Luxman 06u I upgraded to earlier this year, so there may be other contemporary products that will give you better performance than the 203.  The 203 will most likely give you better performance than your current SACD players at a decent price, if you don't have to pay more than the original 203's list price (about $550 as I recall).

I have a 105, and when Oppo announced they were going to be stopping manufacturing I bought a 203.  It’s been in a secondary system and it definitely bested the previous player, a Sony ES SACD that is pretty highly regarded in this forum.  I actually use the 203 mostly for Blu Rays as the system it resides in is mainly for video.  Occasionally I use its Network function to stream files from my NAS (mainly when the Bluesound Node in the same system decides it doesn’t want to work, which is often).  The 203 front usb panel also will read a 1tb drive I have filled with Historic recordings from Pristine Audio, which from some reason isn’t compatible with my other streamers.

  I use my 105 to output the DSD layer from my large SACD collection into my Bryston DAC 3 over HDMI.  The 105 has a lot more miles on it than the 203 in the secondary system.  If the 105 gives up the ghost I am hoping the much more lightly used 203 can take it place in the two channel system 

I am more than satisfied with my Oppo 203, having previously owned a Linn Unidisk player. I replaced the mains input with one by Kimber and use a Kimber Reference powerkord. The difference between CD and SACD is relatively small although SACD's from Japan bring about a noticeable improvement. However, the latest Blu-ray disc of Eric Clapton's "The Lady in the Balcony" is quite superb IMHO. Having said all this I am listening through a Townshend Allegri Reference/Chord SPM 1050 combo, which does make a considerable difference.

I use my 203 as a server.  I have a hard drive connected to it via USB input.  I can access all my music.  Of course you need a video screen to see what's going on and control things.

For a jack-of-all-trades I think it is a good unit.  I've had no problems with it.  I am running it through an external DAC.

@islandmandan tell me more about this linear power supply upgrade,  what are the benefits?  brand and part#? etc.  I have owned my 203 for about a year,  I think its Really Good at everything it does,  but Im not really blown away with Anything it does, esp. cd playback,  although i do Love its speed and features.  I believe the orig. msrp on this machine was approx. $600, and for that price its an AMAZING piece.  Obviously I got mine after the oppo closed its doors and I paid double that,  so for $1200 I guess I was expecting too much.  As for SACD, I don't own any so have no input, sorry.  

Love my UDP-203. Wish I had bought a couple of spares before OPPO closed up shop.

I just recently bought a UDP 203, and then ordered a linear power supply and put it in. I believe it is now the best sounding universal player I've owned, and I've had several different brands. This being the first Oppo I've had.

I'm enjoying it.

Regards,

Dan

My Oppo 203 sounds the same no matter what disc it plays and it sounds pretty darn good. 

I've a dedicated SACD Player (Denon 2500NE) and the Oppo 203.

If you really want to get most of our the SACD, then but a dedicated player. If you want a multiplayer, definitely go for the Oppo ..

The Oppo is a jack of all trades, master of none.  I wouldn't get one if SACD is your main reason for doing so.  I think I'd be disappointed too if a $200 DAC sounded better than my SACD player.  I like my Marantz SACD player.

I had one for about a year and a half and I really wanted to like it, but it was just very ordinary-sounding IMO.  I just didn’t want to listen for long periods of time. Frankly, I gave up on SACDs because, as you pointed out, your good DAC playing red book sounds better than SACDs on the Pioneer. I used to have an Esoteric X-05 and it was the same. Maybe when you get into the 10k range, the players bring out more of the potential of SACD, assuming there is any, but I haven’t experienced it. Certainly not with the 205.