The "cold, sterile" sound is a type of distortion, and the lack of it brings back "warmth" to the sound. But those who believe in simplistic measuring telling one everything appear not to be interested in adavancing the art of audio, by refining the methods of taking measurements, hence this impasse ...
Cold and sterile is a virtue of a digital audio equipment that has a very small amount of jitter measured at all frequencies, in particular very low, and exhibits very little noise and distortion. However, if used with counterbalancing equipment, it can sound very good, as intended by people who invested vast amount of engineering effort to achieve such specification.
In this thread we are talking about 105 multi video / audio / anything player, usually used in a system with very common, transistor amplification and quite inefficient speakers, producing large amount of distortions.
Asking (or aiming) for a same set of 105 specifications in such system would produce a devastating listening experience.
Nick
In this thread we are talking about 105 multi video / audio / anything player, usually used in a system with very common, transistor amplification and quite inefficient speakers, producing large amount of distortions.
Asking (or aiming) for a same set of 105 specifications in such system would produce a devastating listening experience.
Nick
I would like to remind and point out once more, that this thread was started mainly to facilitate changing/sharing informations, and experiences from those who have experienced that improvements it can be done for this Oppo "piece of engineering".
One may know by minimum common sense, that it not exist in this world we live a supreme engineered thing. Everything what is human made is perfectible, it can be done better, and it have errors. To postulate that one or many can do perfection is just stupid! Sorry, but all of you out there have no other choice that only agree to this...
This Do It Yourself thread is not meant to prove by itself or for sceptics (or even for eventual "innocent victims") that one solution is better than other. There is here an presentation of DIY solutions in a trial to do thing better.
I have not seen yet, or experienced since this thread was started that some one have wrote something like: "I done this mod, and I got wrong results. I have this mod, or I suggest this one which bring improvements, or it may be better". But I have experienced many times that some readers, who just do not have something else to do than read on forums, and it have a very high appreciations about themselves, come with critics, ask for proves, expensive measurements methods, using very advanced engineering methods, suitable only for large working teams, with quite high budgets.
Some of these (theoreticians) readers have never ever opened the box of their device (if they even own one) they critic about, or it have difficulties to solder together two things.
I have never ever experienced in this thread that someone come with something like: "I have done this mod, I got not the right results, I (as specialist in the field) measured it and I found this wrong". Never!
But many times I can read posts form someone who just postulate that modding are not the right way to do it, is wrong and only degrade the already a high grade engineered device.
There are also another aspects in all this. Some modifications just do not adapt to precise measurements. Some measurements have nothing to do with the appreciation and perception of the sound out of an audio device. Some measurements, who someone ask for evidences for the pretended improvements, it may involve very special measurement tools, very expensive, and the measurement work in itself is a task that may need huge amount of time and investments to be done. Such thing are not appropriate for a DIY approach, but for big and well funded enterprises.
The poster here asked for blind test results. What mean this? That mean that someone it have to provide special equipped rooms with appropriate high end devices, and it have to organized auditions for quite many peoples. This task have to be acknowledge by maybe official entities, reports have to be written and analysed, and so on. Who have the means to invest in such? Who will pay/invest for all this? And what it may be the reword for such investment? Are you willing to organize such vacuphile ? Then I will come with my player to be blind tested...
Sorry, but these are only stupid requirements from someone who are quite far from the real world... and think that it may be fun to write some posts in a what so ever thread...
I will give you some examples here about common sense improvements which is not possible to be measured.
I will chose a very simple mechanical one about this player. The mechanical system of the disk device/transport in the player. The designers of this "very well engineered" device have appreciated using of very powerful springs to attach this transport to the enclosure. They ignored the fact that the high power of that springs will lead to a very rigid construction. This is a very simple fact: the transport in the player is mechanical attached to the enclosure in a very rigid construction. Even though it use some springs, there is not an elastic construction (as it should be). How the springs are mounted (in a very well engineered product) in this device (as in similar other), it have nothing to do with a vibration damping. BTW, have you ever vacuphile opened your player to observe this issue, in your so exceptional engineered player? That is good enough as it is... Isn`t it?
How to measure all this? Should you pay for huge investment for very advanced equipment to measure such, after modification? Should yourself invest in a team of specialists to measure the dumping effect of the actual mechanical system in this player versus a very simple one,, using some silicone devices to isolate the transport from vibrations?
I seriously doubt for your positive answer to these questions... But is easy to write some posts and ask for proves...
Another example: The AC coupling caps on the outputs of this player. Using caps in audio signal path is not something one may state that is better than not using it.
The designers of this very well engineered product, have chosen this way, while is common sense that is better without these caps. Do you vacuphile need measurements to prove a such simple assertion? You can not appreciate what is better solution here without see some measurements?. If is so, then let me have some serious doubts about your experience, and for someone who ask for such proves...
BTW, I have a suggestion for those sceptics here: just open a new thread about your scepticism. Suggested title: BDP105 - how to not mod it... how to be satisfied with this player as it is...
One may know by minimum common sense, that it not exist in this world we live a supreme engineered thing. Everything what is human made is perfectible, it can be done better, and it have errors. To postulate that one or many can do perfection is just stupid! Sorry, but all of you out there have no other choice that only agree to this...
This Do It Yourself thread is not meant to prove by itself or for sceptics (or even for eventual "innocent victims") that one solution is better than other. There is here an presentation of DIY solutions in a trial to do thing better.
I have not seen yet, or experienced since this thread was started that some one have wrote something like: "I done this mod, and I got wrong results. I have this mod, or I suggest this one which bring improvements, or it may be better". But I have experienced many times that some readers, who just do not have something else to do than read on forums, and it have a very high appreciations about themselves, come with critics, ask for proves, expensive measurements methods, using very advanced engineering methods, suitable only for large working teams, with quite high budgets.
Some of these (theoreticians) readers have never ever opened the box of their device (if they even own one) they critic about, or it have difficulties to solder together two things.
I have never ever experienced in this thread that someone come with something like: "I have done this mod, I got not the right results, I (as specialist in the field) measured it and I found this wrong". Never!
But many times I can read posts form someone who just postulate that modding are not the right way to do it, is wrong and only degrade the already a high grade engineered device.
There are also another aspects in all this. Some modifications just do not adapt to precise measurements. Some measurements have nothing to do with the appreciation and perception of the sound out of an audio device. Some measurements, who someone ask for evidences for the pretended improvements, it may involve very special measurement tools, very expensive, and the measurement work in itself is a task that may need huge amount of time and investments to be done. Such thing are not appropriate for a DIY approach, but for big and well funded enterprises.
The poster here asked for blind test results. What mean this? That mean that someone it have to provide special equipped rooms with appropriate high end devices, and it have to organized auditions for quite many peoples. This task have to be acknowledge by maybe official entities, reports have to be written and analysed, and so on. Who have the means to invest in such? Who will pay/invest for all this? And what it may be the reword for such investment? Are you willing to organize such vacuphile ? Then I will come with my player to be blind tested...
Sorry, but these are only stupid requirements from someone who are quite far from the real world... and think that it may be fun to write some posts in a what so ever thread...
I will give you some examples here about common sense improvements which is not possible to be measured.
I will chose a very simple mechanical one about this player. The mechanical system of the disk device/transport in the player. The designers of this "very well engineered" device have appreciated using of very powerful springs to attach this transport to the enclosure. They ignored the fact that the high power of that springs will lead to a very rigid construction. This is a very simple fact: the transport in the player is mechanical attached to the enclosure in a very rigid construction. Even though it use some springs, there is not an elastic construction (as it should be). How the springs are mounted (in a very well engineered product) in this device (as in similar other), it have nothing to do with a vibration damping. BTW, have you ever vacuphile opened your player to observe this issue, in your so exceptional engineered player? That is good enough as it is... Isn`t it?
How to measure all this? Should you pay for huge investment for very advanced equipment to measure such, after modification? Should yourself invest in a team of specialists to measure the dumping effect of the actual mechanical system in this player versus a very simple one,, using some silicone devices to isolate the transport from vibrations?
I seriously doubt for your positive answer to these questions... But is easy to write some posts and ask for proves...
Another example: The AC coupling caps on the outputs of this player. Using caps in audio signal path is not something one may state that is better than not using it.
The designers of this very well engineered product, have chosen this way, while is common sense that is better without these caps. Do you vacuphile need measurements to prove a such simple assertion? You can not appreciate what is better solution here without see some measurements?. If is so, then let me have some serious doubts about your experience, and for someone who ask for such proves...
BTW, I have a suggestion for those sceptics here: just open a new thread about your scepticism. Suggested title: BDP105 - how to not mod it... how to be satisfied with this player as it is...
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It is a consenting adult kind of thing; as long as you are having fun and don't do damage to others, go for it. Just don't make owners of unadulterated Oppo's unhappy with what they have by implying it could be made better by modding. It can't.
As to digital sounding cold and sterile, this is not innate to the technology, but it might point to other elements in the signal train not being up to scratch.
As to digital sounding cold and sterile, this is not innate to the technology, but it might point to other elements in the signal train not being up to scratch.
Sorry, but it looks to me that someone may live in a fantasy bubble world...
The mod branch is quite an industry in today real world. There are many companies which make a real profit of this simple fact that things are perfectible, and people are interested (and pay for it) to have more than a "well engineered" device.
From now on I will just let you dream your dream about "...It can't"...
The mod branch is quite an industry in today real world. There are many companies which make a real profit of this simple fact that things are perfectible, and people are interested (and pay for it) to have more than a "well engineered" device.
From now on I will just let you dream your dream about "...It can't"...
Well, Coris, that is part of the problem I have with it; snake oil merchants predating on the gullible.
Let me take an example from your post #1043 to illustrate a complete lack of understanding on your part. In this post, you state " They ignored the fact that the high power of that springs will lead to a very rigid construction. This is a very simple fact: the transport in the player is mechanical attached to the enclosure in a very rigid construction. Even though it use some springs, there is not an elastic construction (as it should be).
Now, why should it be an elastic construction? Bullocks. We are not talking about an analog turntable here, but about a system to read bits from silver platter. No bit will be missed because of this construction, and if a bit is missed, it will be corrected by an algorithm that reconstructs the original bitstream with 100% accuracy.
Thank you for providing me with this self-defeating example.
Let me take an example from your post #1043 to illustrate a complete lack of understanding on your part. In this post, you state " They ignored the fact that the high power of that springs will lead to a very rigid construction. This is a very simple fact: the transport in the player is mechanical attached to the enclosure in a very rigid construction. Even though it use some springs, there is not an elastic construction (as it should be).
Now, why should it be an elastic construction? Bullocks. We are not talking about an analog turntable here, but about a system to read bits from silver platter. No bit will be missed because of this construction, and if a bit is missed, it will be corrected by an algorithm that reconstructs the original bitstream with 100% accuracy.
Thank you for providing me with this self-defeating example.
Have a look at Audiomeca Mephisto CD transports. They used special plastics of appropriate density and the current-starved CD transports (spindle motors) to make the difference. CEC has belt-driven spindle CD transports that are accepted as one of the best sounding transports today, beside the Audiomeca's which are sadly not in a production any more.
I have modified few Audiomecas. They are the best, most analogue sounding transports I have heard.
Nick
Analog sounding? I wonder what changes that requires to the digital data stream!
So are you saying that these transports are so smart that they can find digital bytes that code for selected signal frequencies and amplitudes from the bit stream coming off the CD; that they then modify those digital words, and then re-insert them at the appropriate place back into the bit stream, then modify the related error correction data to prevent the drive to flag the modified digital words as errors, all on the fly?
Wow! That's not CD drive, that's a super computer with one heck of a piece of software!
Jan
Dear friends, it goes without saying that I fully agree with Jan, and this to me seems a good moment to humbly bow out of this discussion.
Coris, Nick, I wish you good luck with your belief based engineering attemps and much fun behind the soldering iron. But please, don't advertise yourselves as being knowledgeable to other non-experts.
Coris, Nick, I wish you good luck with your belief based engineering attemps and much fun behind the soldering iron. But please, don't advertise yourselves as being knowledgeable to other non-experts.
The branch of modders is more wide than only these two persons you chose to mention here. This branch and many of the modders are more knowledgeable than you prove to be. First because all those peoples dare to do thing, and gain experiences/knowledge, one who only read and advocate from an armchair, can`t do...
So if that is true, how come that they and others like you, after years and years of mods, demonstrate they still don't know s**t??
Jan
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There is not just lack of substance in what he state in his post.
The data (bits) in a stream it come out from a digital transmitter or converter with lots of errors and wrong bits. You may know this... the digital system ar far from perfect, but it "knows" well enough to correct errors...
There is a huge amount of factors which lead to errors in a digital system, as DAC or ADC systems. All these errors, or the most of it have to be corrected, for that system reach its tasks. There are lot of resources both hardware as software which are used to correct these data. This process is completely transparent for the users of that digital stream. I do no mean here about human users, but another stages in that system. These approaches it happen in many levels of that digital system, and for every data streamed out or in.
What about if all these processes are simplified and the resources of the system do not have to be used and consume useful processing time to correct errors? Like errors due to mechanical vibrations of CD transport (f. ex.)?
BTW, one way to correct (bits) errors is to reconstruct bits and bytes by predicted algorithms. Some times all these used algorithms do not much exactly the real world. Some times the reconstruction of the digital informations is not perfect, but an approximation.
Do you really think that all these processes have not any consequences for an outputted audio signal (f. ex.)? Do you think that simplifying the error correction processing, by providing a more accurate information to a system, have no any positive impact for the final result?
One should go more deep into how the thing works, to understand what happen, before emitting appreciations (as in your post...).
Vacuphile,
Lett me give you some concrete examples and some links to measurements.
For example, the French online magazine HDfever did a series of measurements and listening tests on the OPPO-105 players. They then also repeated these measurements and tests on modified players. They found a lower noise floor on the modified players, as well as improved sonic performance.
As another example, I can point you to the discussion thread on the OPPO-95 players. I encourage you to read the beginning of the OPPO-95 thread on this site. You would probably agree that this was also a well engineered player, and had good sound. And yet this player had a fan, and power supplies that generated a lot of heat. Coris among others discussed many ways to improve this player, including replacing the power supply, and improving the filtering, bypassing, improving the clocks, better vibration isolation, etc. There are professional modification companies which list on their sites the types of improvements that they make.
lo and behold, when the OPPO-105 player was released, many of these improvements were made by the manufacturer. The new player includes a separate toroidal transformer and many separate voltage regulators, a sturdy chassis, as well as numerous audiophile bypass capacitors.
In the current thread, you also see that there've been many discussions about what kind of clocks to use, and at what frequency. Many people have suggested that higher-quality 80 MHz 100 MHz or synchronized, or multiple clocks at the correct frequencies should be superior to the current 54 MHz clock.
In fact, the latest headphone amplifier product now dispenses with the SMPS, and includes a 100 MHz clock, improved op amps and IV circuit and a class A output buffer/headphone amplifier. So I think you can see that these products are evolving in time, and also that they are built to a certain price point, and therefore are amenable to improvements. The DIY forums attract a wide variety of users including professionals and those with measuring equipment. As another example, Charlies Hansen has discussed on the DIY forum how Ayre incorporated/modified an oppo player into one of their high-end devices.
At the same time, I agree with you that this current player is already excellent, and already probably starts out at 95/100 (whatever that means). This means that one will not be able to make a 500% improvement to the player. Nevertheless, I think that we can enjoy improvements that we do make. Remember that this is primarily a hobby for most of us, and it's for fun. Not everything that is suggested in this forum is correct, and we should accept this in the spirit of experimentation and learning. I think we can understand if Coris exaggerates a little bit in his enthusiasm, but remember that he has been very generous with his ideas and his work and we should be grateful to him for his hard work, and for posting so much material here.
Finally, I'm going to ask all of you to work together in a spirit of collective understanding and maintain a more positive attitude and language.
Eric
Lett me give you some concrete examples and some links to measurements.
For example, the French online magazine HDfever did a series of measurements and listening tests on the OPPO-105 players. They then also repeated these measurements and tests on modified players. They found a lower noise floor on the modified players, as well as improved sonic performance.
As another example, I can point you to the discussion thread on the OPPO-95 players. I encourage you to read the beginning of the OPPO-95 thread on this site. You would probably agree that this was also a well engineered player, and had good sound. And yet this player had a fan, and power supplies that generated a lot of heat. Coris among others discussed many ways to improve this player, including replacing the power supply, and improving the filtering, bypassing, improving the clocks, better vibration isolation, etc. There are professional modification companies which list on their sites the types of improvements that they make.
lo and behold, when the OPPO-105 player was released, many of these improvements were made by the manufacturer. The new player includes a separate toroidal transformer and many separate voltage regulators, a sturdy chassis, as well as numerous audiophile bypass capacitors.
In the current thread, you also see that there've been many discussions about what kind of clocks to use, and at what frequency. Many people have suggested that higher-quality 80 MHz 100 MHz or synchronized, or multiple clocks at the correct frequencies should be superior to the current 54 MHz clock.
In fact, the latest headphone amplifier product now dispenses with the SMPS, and includes a 100 MHz clock, improved op amps and IV circuit and a class A output buffer/headphone amplifier. So I think you can see that these products are evolving in time, and also that they are built to a certain price point, and therefore are amenable to improvements. The DIY forums attract a wide variety of users including professionals and those with measuring equipment. As another example, Charlies Hansen has discussed on the DIY forum how Ayre incorporated/modified an oppo player into one of their high-end devices.
At the same time, I agree with you that this current player is already excellent, and already probably starts out at 95/100 (whatever that means). This means that one will not be able to make a 500% improvement to the player. Nevertheless, I think that we can enjoy improvements that we do make. Remember that this is primarily a hobby for most of us, and it's for fun. Not everything that is suggested in this forum is correct, and we should accept this in the spirit of experimentation and learning. I think we can understand if Coris exaggerates a little bit in his enthusiasm, but remember that he has been very generous with his ideas and his work and we should be grateful to him for his hard work, and for posting so much material here.
Finally, I'm going to ask all of you to work together in a spirit of collective understanding and maintain a more positive attitude and language.
Eric
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A negative and damaging post - and it serves no purpose whatever.
What is more, it is untrue.
Actually, I am on this thread as I am (idly) designing a Sabre board of my own, and am curious about what folks do with it.
I have tried Coris's 100M TOYOCOM oscillator, and Joe Rasmussen's output capacitor (position and dimensioning).
In both cases, these ideas make perfectly good sense from a design point of view - the specification of the oscillator (especially at its price-point), and the application of the capacitor. And since I am a design professional, I know very well how to judge.
In both cases, I tried them, and they sound good, too.
They are original ideas, worth trying as mods, or trying in new designs. Neither of them require proof - they either make sense to you - and you try them, or you just ignore them, and go to the next thread.
Could not be simpler.
So I take the opportunity to say - thank you Joe, and thank you Coris, for two good ideas. I suspect there are more ideas here, if anyone needs them.
Hang in there, Coris. I have a 105 and it 'could' be improved, but the company does not consider subjective changes as important as objective changes, so IF you recommend something that does not improve the MEASUREMENTS, it will not necessarily be acted on. My associate and I are now looking at a problem that we might be able to fix with an alternate analog approach after the D-A. Yes, there are compromises there.
Goodness. I apologise for setting off such a tyrade. Just to say I do not mind asking questions of people who appear be knowledgable. I am an expert in some fields but ignorant in others, so I ask. And it would be silly to assume that the only place I am looking for sucha advice is here.
There does seem to be plenty of professional reviews and commentary from respected individuals about modded 105's. Enough to suggest the player has been built to a price point with some very good results, but leaving potential on the table. If you read a lot there is also some conjecture that Oppo learn from modders in determining what are cost effective improvements without blowing their price point. Thankyou for reminding me (and others) of the risks, but please don't get carried away.
Just to state the obvious as a potential purchaser of a modified player I will make a decision (based on respected peoples views and reputations) about what is worth following up versus not. So I don't plan to make some uninformed expenditure which was never going to make me happy. There are plenty of checks and balances indivduals can follow up on.
There does seem to be plenty of professional reviews and commentary from respected individuals about modded 105's. Enough to suggest the player has been built to a price point with some very good results, but leaving potential on the table. If you read a lot there is also some conjecture that Oppo learn from modders in determining what are cost effective improvements without blowing their price point. Thankyou for reminding me (and others) of the risks, but please don't get carried away.
Just to state the obvious as a potential purchaser of a modified player I will make a decision (based on respected peoples views and reputations) about what is worth following up versus not. So I don't plan to make some uninformed expenditure which was never going to make me happy. There are plenty of checks and balances indivduals can follow up on.
Personally, I have found the best approach is to understand what correct reproduction sounds like - which is another way of saying that subjectively disturbing distortion in the playback has been reduced to a level where the mind can easily, and unconsciously ignore it. Trying to get the audio to sound like you think it should, to me is a pointless exercise - it should sound like what is on the recording, whatever that may be. Luckily, what is on the recording, no matter how "bad" it is, is immensely satisfying if it is replayed correctly - you won't get unstuck going to that place!!
I have found most people don't understand "correct" sound, they talk about things like whether behaviour in the midrange is good or not - I just scratch my head with a bemused thought in mind when this talk kicks off; the chances of getting decent sound with this approach is pretty minimal. Many seem to have trained themselves over the years to develop an ever more hifi sounding audio system, which then only sounds decent on highly specialised recordings - the result is something so far from being able to sound correct that it has become a parody ...
I have found most people don't understand "correct" sound, they talk about things like whether behaviour in the midrange is good or not - I just scratch my head with a bemused thought in mind when this talk kicks off; the chances of getting decent sound with this approach is pretty minimal. Many seem to have trained themselves over the years to develop an ever more hifi sounding audio system, which then only sounds decent on highly specialised recordings - the result is something so far from being able to sound correct that it has become a parody ...
You may not need to apologise. It is not your fault. Actually your involvement in all this is indirectly. There was/is all about a principle here...
You acted just right: you asked something, and you got an answer. The answer started actually all this "case"...