the oppo 83 special edition as a transport

Yep, I read many very favorable reviews/comments on PS's DAC 1 and bought one with the full blown Cullen mod a couple of years ago. Underwhelmed is what I was.

The hardness in mine bothered me at first. It did take a long time to go away. I don't know how many hours, but over 300. I continually played Purist Audio's Break In CD.
I also replaced the HDMI Cable with the PS Audio Silver HDMI. I don't hear any hardness or glare anymore.

hi blindjim:

i'm not giving up. i will give the ps audio combo another 300 hours. we'll see what happens.

Mr. T

Thanks. remembering some of your preffs from a ways back I sort of thought those sentiments were in play here.

I've noticed on a couple new players folks saying the run in time was exceptionally lengthy, eg., approaching or exceeding 400-500 hrs.

maybe this is nothing more than that. A need for more spinning/playing time. Albeit it's setup may be more intensive a thing to delve into as well... to give it greater ease in the reproduction.... well, hopefully anyway.

hi blindjim:

my complaints about the ps audio units can be summed up as follows

there is an analytical quality. musical details seem to be exaggerated. playing at louder levels creates a perception of hardness.

on the plus side frequency response is full, i.e., there is no lack of bass. but, there is some hardness.

i come from a tradition of tubes. the pair hardly reminds me of the sound of tubes.

Mr. T

Perhaps at some point you would elaborate on the how's and why's of your feelings on the PSA units determined lack of performance or it's issues that you have found to be less than to your liking.

it would shed a better light on things than a regretful statement indicating your own dislike for it which BTW, is pretty vague as it stands now.

Owner/user reviews IMO are of far more interest to me than those written by non owners…. Or INO… borrowers… primarily because owners have paid outright for the thing up front and then don’t owe anyone anything.

Good luck.

o guess i regret not having auditioned bothe ps audio components prior to purchase.

however i hear what i hear. there have been many favorable comments on both the dac and transport. while not perhaps sounding to my taste, havingowned the ps audio products for a couple of months i am relating my experiences. i have no axe to grind here.

regarding the oppo 83 se, i think it is a an accceptable transport.

perhaps , as has occurred in the past my perceptions differ from those of many others. such a situation has nothing to do with credibility , but rather uniqueness of prefrence.

anyway, it';s no big deal either way.

Mr. T

Given your initial perhaps hasty phrases which were littered with misspelled words I'm thinking also someone here was quite angry about something when this thread was begun.

At what? Themselves or the player? The Dealership? Or that it's Black Walnut and not Black Cherry flavored?

Or maybe someone was under the influence of other things...

I withhold statements of dislike to a thing until I've tried about every way I can to integrate a thing into my system by way of cables and isolation right off.

buying a thing outright and applying subjective accounts to it's performance should carry a bit more weight, especially if the purchase was like that of any other common ordinary purchase anyone might make, sans any extraordinary discount... as Tvad alluded too.

If it's got issues and was bought new... send it in to PSA for a check up first. If they maintain it's all good, and it's then a matter of simple preferences, well gee... I feel ya man... but that's not PSA, the dealers' or anyone else's fault now is it?
One other option could be that you send it along to Mr. Cullen for some upgrades... or mods, or simply attempt to resell it.

Send it in... work on the setup... and/or sell it if it's not your cup of tea. But do try to be square on any account of it as being too subjectively oriented and rooted into preffs instead of straight ahead performance as compared to some likewise thing you've owned or used extensively. the former aspiration simply isn't going to be appropriate.

So like Johnny Storm says after scorching the Heavens over New york city for a while: "Flame off".

Mrtennis, I have used the Oppo not SE as a transport to drive two different dacs. One was the Minerva and the other the Exemplar/Xindak Dac5. I also used two other transports into both dacs. One was the Exemplar/Shanling SCD-3000 and the other their music server. In my opinion the Oppo is a very poor transport although as a player it is good. Perhaps their digital out is not well implemented.

hi vman71:

you make claims without any evidence. you are entitled to your opinion, but i explained that i made a mistake. we all make them. i did not say that the ps audio combo was inferior, the point of the thread is to compare the oppo to the pas audio. if you were more careful in your reading and more forgiving as a person you wouldn't be making unsubstantiated claims.

hi tvad:

i did not audition the ps audio combo before ipurchased it. thus i took a chance based upon other factors. i should have known better.

Thank you Tvad for exposing this guy as a person who lacks credibility. Additionally, as a person who claims to be a reviewer, Mrtennis is asking some real ignorant questions.

My advice, sell the PS Audio transport and DAC and move on. From your posts, I don't think their sound suits your ear and I don't believe you'll ever be satisfied with either piece. (Not a bad thing, not every piece of equipment is everyones cup of tea) From reading reviews and other reports, try the new Bryston DAC with the OPPO. Or purchase the special addition of the OPPO, or one of several highly acclaimed OPPO mods that there are out there. I might suggest one of the Cary players, an Ayon, or ARC CD-7. I enjoy the sound of the PS Audio in my system, but if I weren't currently enjoying the sound, I'd be checking out some of the above, and if given the chance still might. If you purchase it used, on Audiogon, you can probably turn around and resell it in a few days without much of a loss if any.

Why bother with the special edition if you're just going to use it as a transport? You know that only the analog stage and dac was upgraded, right?