Marantz DV-9500/9600 ?
Universal Players vs. Dedicated CD/SACD Players
Greetings all. I'm curious what other's experiences are listening to Universal Players vs. "dedicated" cd/sacd players. I have an Oppo BDP95 based on the reviews and convenience of the "one-box" solution. However, I've been wondering if I'm missing some audio performance this way. I'm more into sound than video BTW. I have an audiophile friend who says he doesn't like audio and video in the same box. I've entertained thoughts of purchasing a dedicated audio cd/sacd player. Your input is appreciated.
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jafant, Incredibly, there was a Pioneer Elite BDP 09 on C***list in my area for months, at $500. The seller offered to sell it to me for $450, but it still took another month to sell it. Whoever bought it got a genuine bargain. It wasn't me since I already have one (and an Oppo 105D), but I was tempted at the ridiculous price. I paid $1100 a few years ago and thought it was a bargain then. |
tonykay I have a Sony BDP that seems to require a firmware update every time I use it. Frequently it won't play Blu Rays unless the update is done. It's unbelievably frustrating (it's in a second system in a room we keep woprkout equipment in) and usually I just opt for listening to music via the aforementioned Pioneer Elite Universal Player while exercising because I don't want to start my morning with the hassle of another firmware update on the Sony. And the industry wonders why Blu Ray had such a hard time competing against streaming! My wife is always asking me to do the updates and is totally intimidated by the difficulty associated with what ought to be the easiest thing imaginable--popping in a disc and hitting "play" |
Jafant, No, I bought the Pioneer BDP09 used several years ago from a dentist in Connecticut. It worked great with DVDs, and I only used it recently for Blu-Ray and found it wouldn't play them. Remembering that the dentist had included about six discs, which he explained were "firmware updates", I called Pioneer and they sent me the latest firmware update disc (without charge). Now, it works great but the idea of having to regularly update the player seems ridiculous to me. I could understand if each update improved the performance, but in the case of the BDP09, it simply refused to play Blu-Ray until the update was complete. A beautiful player though! |
jafant, I ran across this today and thought it might be of interest (scroll down to the second item): http://www.analogshop.com/index.php/demo-used I am not affiliated with the sale or store in any way. |
mahler123, I also have a Pioneer Elite BDP 09 that I use for video. The audio through the "Pure Audio" mode is great, however, initially it wouldn't play Blu-Ray until it had a firmware update. Who invents this stuff? It's like buying a car that won't run unless you take it to the dealer for the 30-60-90,000 mile tune ups. It reminds me of the "universal" players that will only play SACD, but not DVD-Audio (or the reverse). My Oppo 105D doesn't have that problem, as it plays everything! |
The Audia Flight CD One M finally came in. I'm running everything through a Furman IT Reference 20i now, as well. Out of the box it's absolutely stunning, even better than what I remember from the demo unit I auditioned, so I can only imagine what it will sound like after a few days of listening. It is definitely several steps up from the ModWright Oppo 105 it replaced. |
An interesting thread. I have an Oppo 105 in my two channel system that I don't use for video at all. I play many SACDS, a few DCD-A and Blu Ray Audio and DTS Audios and some High Res downloads but primarily it's Red Book CD. It's a highly resolving piece of equipment. I have had some problem with glare (I started another thread on this) and I think it may be a function of some poorly recorded or transferred CDs; I think the player is just revealing the inadequacy of those particular recordings. I have an older Universal Player in an HT System but it's a Pioneer Elite that has an "i link"--a firewire connection to a matching Pioneer Elite receiver. Amazing audio, but the video is horribly outdated, as someone else noted upthread. |
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. |
So, if you have only one system, including audio and video, you would be hard pressed to match the performance of the Oppo 105D at anywhere near its price. However, for headphone listening I'm using a transport and DAC combination. Things are changing so quickly that today's SOTA equipment can be tomorrow's boat anchor. But today, it's definitely Oppo! |
I bought a McIntosh universal player (MVP-871) and it was nothing but problems, and it was eventually replaced by an Oppo 105D. What a difference! The Oppo was truly plug and play with any type of disc. It has balanced, RCA and HDMI outputs. No, it doesn't have the beautiful green-led faceplate like my other Mac components, all it does is sound great and put out ultra clear video. To me, it seems to be the biggest value in A/V. |
Hello 213runnin I have owned Oppo 95 and a friend has a Oppo 105. The Oppo 105 has no fan noise. The 105 is supposed to have a better chip set. The Oppo 95 has a fan that can come on when it gets warm. Some owners complained about the noise. My Oppo 95 fan came on on about the forth or fifth disc in a row. I only heard it when i was right on top of it. From my listening spot about ten feet away i never heard it. The 95 vs the 105 from what i heard the 105 was a slight bit better across the board. I had to use xlr cables to hear the difference. To be fair my Oppo 95 was well broken in and the Oppo 105 did not have the same amount of hours on it. Both are very nice units and need a long break in period. Oppo customer service is all so five star. Enjoy Pete |
I'm not sure OP told us where the output of the 95 goes. Oppos can provide many of the functions of a processor or they can be used as spinners if HDMI is taken to a pre/pro. Balanced analog from my Ayre C-5xeMP goes to a Parasound JC 2 BP, but HDMI from my Oppo 105D and Sony XA5400ES goes to a Bryston SP3 that does the analog processing. Front LR from the SP3 is passed through the JC 2 BP to JC 1 mono blocks. The SP3 has closed the gap, but I still prefer the Ayre for stereo, especially for CDs. |
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. |
Thank you. I was wondering last night if I wanted to improve upon redbook cd performance, how much would I need to spend on a dedicated cd player to better the performance of my Oppo BDP-95? I'd be happy with a $100.00 blu ray for video. If I'd have to spend $1000.00+ to improve upon the cd capability of the Oppo which I bought for $500.00 then I'd think harder probably... |
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. |
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. |
I don't have experience with Oppo or auralic I am still using my beloved Classé Omega CD/HDCD/SACD player on a daily basis, it also does redbook like nothing else, when I do look at streamers I will upgrade my Magnum Dynalab Tuner to one of their top-of-the-line internet tuner/sreamers. There is no substitute for high-end quality! |
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. |
I have been a fan of any CD or Universal player that has an output for an external DAC. I don't play SACDs, just CDs. I have found that every couple of years the DACs get better, and as such the CDs sound better. So I guess I like the idea of swapping an external DAC or even swapping a board in a DAC to make the CDs sound better. Much like the Schiit Bifrost upgrades offered. When I added a Benchmark DAC to my older Sony CD player it was a big improvement in sound. Of course I try to get a spinner with the best transport and optical playback I can afford. |
Quote: ".... 12-17-2015 12:02pm In my experience, dedicated CD players have better redbook performance than similarly, or even somewhat more expensive multi-format players..." "....initforthemusic 17 posts 01-29-2016 8:05am No contest. A quality dedicated CD player will annihilate the Oppo/Cambridge universal players on redbook playback...." +1 I have the ARCAM FMJ Blu-Ray player for multichannel (movies and audio) I have the REGA ISIS Valce cdp for 2-channel. Verdict: As good as the ARCAM is, the performance superiority of the REGA for 2-channel red book cd audio is not even close: the differences are not subtle. |
