Oppo`s BDP105 - discussions, upgrading, mods...

[ashok]

Originally Posted by David Gatti

...........
Does anyone have details on the output caps as it's hard to tell from the pics? Are they electrolytic and what is their value?......

OPPO's answer ,quoted earlier in this thread ,said WIMA...... a film type cap.

[Coris]

Originally Posted by qusp

just making a dac that has no DC on the output is pretty foolproof... not that hard when youve got a balanced dac either

Very right! That is proof design: DC coupling with no DC offset on the final stage. Everybody (hobbyist) knows to place an capacitor on the final amp output to get rid the faulty design with big offset, and having out only the usefully signal...
What about introducing (AC coupling) impedance/inductance in a wide spectre of audio frequencies, when an large electrolytic capacity is in the useful signal path? Is no doubt that one hear very clear such difference: with or without AC caps on the final stage...

[Coris]

Originally Posted by David Gatti

I can fully understand why Oppo have not DC coupled the output - they have to make their equipment fool proof.
If users want to bypass or replace the output caps with something superior (and I'm one of them) that is done at their own risk.

Does anyone have details on the output caps as it's hard to tell from the pics? Are they electrolytic and what is their value?

As you can see in the picture here, It seems that the final (isolating) caps are not very special ones. I guess they are of 680µF capacity, and for sure electrolytic.
WIMA (the film red ones) caps are quite low capacity and used to decoupling the final opamps, filtering in the signal path, and so on...

Another sign of proof design should be the using of such WIMA film caps (or another ones) to parallel the isolation large capacity caps, for an much better frequency response for the output signal....At last is not to be seen in this picture...

[David Gatti]

Coris, that's what it looked like to me too - a big electrolytic on the output! Not good.
I hope we're wrong.
Does the 103 have a similar output ac-coupled output?

[David Gatti]

Originally Posted by ashok

OPPO's answer ,quoted earlier in this thread ,said WIMA...... a film type cap.

Which post number was that?
The answer I found stated they used Elna and no mention was made of the type.

[Coris]

Originally Posted by David Gatti

Coris, that's what it looked like to me too - a big electrolytic on the output! Not good.
I hope we're wrong.
Does the 103 have a similar output ac-coupled output?

BDP103 do not have ESS9018 DAC... I can not be sure about the output coupling in 103. Looking at the picture, it may be it may be not... But it seems to me that they used the same design type for both those last players.
Else such isolating caps in AC coupling in most cases are electrolytics, because the need of a large capacity at a low price...
I`m personally not worry about those caps... I think it will be a nice mod to remove it all and fix the eventual offset problem on the output of the channels, and then DC couling.
My problem is at the allocation of the DAC channels in the stereo stage. That allocation is quite bad, and I have no idea at this time how to fix this...
Else the 105 model have for sure some benefits over the 103 model (one is USB asynchronous DAC). It looks to me that I will keep on my pre order...

Oppo use Elna and WIMA caps in theirs machines. Elna for electrolytics and WIMA for film.

[Uunderhill]

Originally Posted by Coris

I`m quite sceptic about it is happen up sampling to 32 bits inside the player... It may be possible, but nobody knows, but the producer...
Art least the specifications of 95/105 are about 24 bit (standard).
But you can do it by your self this... It take a little time, but the result is very good.
I will tell you how I do it:
I rip the CD into my editing software (Audition). Correct the level for each file to a right one (usually into -1dB). This is my standard. Up sampling the 44100/16bit file to 176400Hz /32bit (100% quality). Apply or not Channels Phase correction.
Convert the file to Flac - 176,4Khz/24 bit. Play it through my player (95).
Top result!
You can be amazed about how much information/fidelity is encoded in to the standard CD files and one do not hear it when it plays the CD at standard sampling/bit.

Coris,

Thanks for this info.

My Xindak DAC-5 upsamples redbook CD's to 24/192.

I was hoping the Oppo 95, with the 32 bit ess9018 DAC, would upsample to 32 bits.
A year ago, I phoned Oppo in California - and they weren't sure - they suggested getting in contact with ESS.
Then I phoned ESS but got an answering machine.

Here is the ESS product sheet
http://www.esstech.com/PDF/SABRE32%2...1%20120726.pdf

and it says "... DAC's 32 bit Hyper stream architecture can handle full 32 bits PCM via IS2, ..."
It says it can handle 32 bits - it doesn't say it upsamples to 32 bits.




Also, my Xindak DAC-5 had WIMA MKS 4 output coupling caps.
From listening, I am of the opinion that with the WIMA's
there was "warmth" but there was a slight roughness in higher frequencies.
However, I'm not sure if the slight roughness was due to the cap itself,
or how well the cap could mask quantization issues.

I replaced the WIMA's with Mundorf M-Cap supremes - which are huge.
They just barely fit in the Xindak DAC-5.
Without question - for whatever reason - there was less roughness with the Mundorf Supremes than the WIMA's.

I didn't try the Mundorf silver/oils because they are only rated to 55oC.
So didn't think it would be wise to mount them right beside a tube.

All the film caps, with copper plates, that I have seen are priced beyond belief.


Space is very limited inside the Oppo 105 - so maybe it would be best to try
bypassing the WIMA's with a higher end film cap.
.

[Uunderhill]

Also, not many people get exited about small value electrolytics on a circuit board,
but, people who actually have the equipment to measure caps, are impressed by the ELNA's low ESR.

However, a potential problem maybe with the removal of the fan.
Will the Oppo 105 become an easy bake oven - and slowly cook the electrolytics ?

[Coris]

Originally Posted by Uunderhill

I was hoping the Oppo 95, with the 32 bit ess9018 DAC, would upsample to 32 bits.
A year ago, I phoned Oppo in California - and they weren't sure - they suggested getting in contact with ESS.
Then I phoned ESS but got an answering machine.

.

I seriously doubt that Oppo will come out with such details: how they handle the digital signals inside the machine.... They are of course sure about how they do it, but they can not speak out such things...

ESS9018 work with an resolution of 32 bit. If it get the informations on 32 bit, then it can handle... Is not the chip itself which up sample the stream. Such upsampling/processing it may happen in the main processor of the player. Then the stream is send to the DAC to be converted to analogue.
It may happen that the Oppo`s processor work at this 32 bit resolution for the audio signals. Else it could be quite stupid to use a 32 bit capable DAC to run some low resolution streams... But how it is in real, we can not know for sure.
If you want to get inside such details about ESS9018, the way it work, there is in this forum enough detailed informations about... Lot of to read

About the temperature inside the fanless 105 we can not say too much at this time. We have to wait the first reviews, and comments from the first owners... There are some infos about in the thread in AVS forum, but not much. We will see and feel soon...

[stephensank]

Correct me if I am wrong, but, as I see the specs, all of these "32bit dac" chips from ESS & etc. are NOT 32bit dacs, but are 24bit dacs with 32bit digital filter on-board. I haven't ectually seen even a 24bit dac that's capable of genuine 24bit SNR/DNR.

Oppo's reasoning for use of 4x dac channels for headphone makes no sense. The dac chip does not see any 'extra load', as it's simply feeding a driver chip. They should have at least used, instead, 4 dac channels for the balanced outputs, which would have made good sense.

Appears that the 103 uses Nichicon caps in the dac/output stages, which I personally prefer over Elna. I find Elna's to be far too unreliable to use, even if they *maybe* sound a bit better for a given purpose(which I believe they don't, after caps are well broken in). Elna's are particularly short life in hot environments, which I expect the 105 will be.

As for the dc offset- in this sort of design, even very sloppy selection of parts will end up with totally insignificant output offset, unless the design is appallingly bad. But UL hates anything without dc blocking on output/input, so most makers use them even when they are not at all needed.

I don't know why people are at all impressed when they see Wima caps. I've known them to be terribly bad sounding caps for 25 years. Even after 1000 hours of break in, they sound hazy in signal path & grainy as ps bypass. I'd sooner use Panasonic polyesters than any Wima.