Universal Players vs. Dedicated CD/SACD Players

Like the OP, I had an Oppo 95 and just sold it after about 5 years.  It's a swiss army knife of a player, very flexible and can play just about anything off a thumb drive.  It sounds really good too with redbook cds.  

Personally though, I got tired of the long delay upon start up.  Since it's a blu ray player, it has to go through this arduous start up.  It won't start playing a previously inserted cd for close to 30 seconds.  

And if you want to scan through part of a song, it has this oddball method of playing a second of audio, then repeatedly skipping ahead 5 to 15 seconds(depending on how many times you press the scan button) to play another second.  No smooth scanning through to more easily get to the part of the song you want.  I found it difficult to work with.

On a whim, I bought an old used Marantz carousal player from '97 and compared it to the Oppo.  I was surprised that it came pretty close in performance, though Marantz has always made pretty good stuff, and this one was not an entry level model, the CD65SE.

The Oppo had a little more detail, but the Marantz was a little warmer.  I can't remember if the Oppo had a bigger soundstage.  It opened my eyes a little, because I would have thought that the Oppo would slay the old Marantz.

This had led me to believe that a dedicated cd/sacd player can be better than an all in one.  I'm now waiting for delivery of a used Nad C565BEE cd player.  I figure it should do better than the Marantz, it can at least play more file types and can operate as a DAC with a Wolfson chipset.  It retailed for $800 when new.  Oppo is good, but certainly not the be all end all.

Okay, you can put me solidly in the separates category.  As mentioned above, my Nad C365BEE came and I immediately dropped everything and spooled up some cds.  Wow, Nad makes some nice sounding gear.  It's got more of a 3D soundstage than the Oppo 95, with a nicer balance of warm and detailed.  One track stands out, a shimmering cymbal in which I'd never heard the individual drumstick strikes until now!  

And of course it easily bests the old Marantz.  The 365, which is not a current model, has 4 filters you can pick from for a different sound. It also has a 12v trigger, the Oppo for all of it's swiss army like functions, had neither of this.  Nor the optical input that allows the Nad to act as a DAC!  

I'm not sure how much of these items or the sound is contained in the current Nad C346BEE, but it's worth an audition just based on what the 365 can do.

Oops, I got the model number of my Nad wrong, it's the C565BEE, and the current model I was referring to is the C546BEE.


Beernut, I had the ERC-1 and sold it after becoming dissatisfied with it.  It would freeze up every now and then and I had to power cycle it to get it to work again.  It also skipped the first few seconds of the first track played upon power up, after that it was fine.  I replaced it with the Oppo 95, which did sound superior.

The ERC-3 shouldn't have these issues.  Marantz, Nad and Cambridge all have interesting options.

Hopefully some more Oppo 95 owners can chime in.  I know the Nad C565BEE is superior, but it's no longer made and went for $800 back in 2011. They pop up used now and then.  I'm not sure if the current Nad C546BEE is just a stripped down version of the 565 or not, and thusly would sound the same without the optical input and filtering modes.

But it does come down to taste, some prefer Marantz cd players over Oppo and vice versa.  Owners say the Oppo 105 is nicer sounding than the 95, but you'd have to spend a fair amount.  

Good info Pete, I forgot about the fan.  I would have been curious about the 105, but Nad has made a believer out of me.

jafant, the Nad C565BEE is indeed a fine spinner! I’d forgotten to try the Sample Rate Converter with compressed files. With the Nad, they don’t sound compressed at all, the air and detail has me grinning from ear to ear. By comparison, the Oppo 95 could sound somewhat tinny or one dimensional with mp3’s.

But with redbook, the Oppo still lags behind what this Nad can do as well. They were pretty close to the same price back in 2011 when I was looking, but the 565 wasn’t even on my radar as Oppo was all everyone was talking about. I didn’t need or want a bluray player, I just wanted something for cds.

Don’t get me wrong, the Oppo does a lot of things well, but I think I agree with you that they are not the last word in audio quality.