oppo dv-970hd sound quality

[peterS]

as some may know this is a universel player playing dvd-a, sacd, and hdcd
not to mention its big brothers reputation for being fantastic video wise

i decided to give this player a try against another modestly priced piece of equipment i have- cambridge audio 540
thinking id hear a slight improvement on the oppo w/ a sacd vs playing the dual layered disk in a standard cd i gave it a try

it took less than a minute of playing herbie handcock's "prelude in c# minor"
to notice how inferior the oppo sounded
horrible bass, no soundstage, the need for playing at higher volumes and consiquently noise

i wouldnt be surprised for this to lose out cd vs cd but with the advantage of having sacd capability im surprised

pretty dissapointing and a far cry from the performance some places have claimed it to have

the only possitive thing i have to say about it is its hdmi cord that performed as well as my after morket monster 1000 series cable

[gostan]

The Oppo 970 is not really intended to be a decent audio sacd or dvd-a player. This ability is simply a glitchy add-on. No comparison to my now much older Denon 2900.

It is a great reasonably priced upconverting dvd player for those with external scalers, due to its 480i capabilities and solid transport. The audio for movie viewing should always be via your pre-pro, and my Anthem D2 does a great job with the audio when mated for SD viewing via the Oppo. The Oppo 970 is a video player, not an audio player.

[nbourbaki]

I agree with Gostan. I compared my Oppo with a Sony C222ES SACD player. It wasn't close. I'm always surprised when I hear other say how good this player sounds. Maybe compared to other inexpensive DVD players but not compared to a good CD player.

[peterS]

after some more time with it i have noticed some passages that are much more detailed but my initial coments still hold true... imo any improvements i hear are dirrectly atributed to the sacd disk itself

[Brandon B]

This is a cheap player from China for which the intended market focus was as a transport to allow people to get 480i over HDMI for those wishing to do all scaling and deinterlacing externally for a high end display.

I doubt they spent more than a short amount of time on the audio quality.

BB

[joetama]

It still goes back to "you get what you pay for". I'm sure it does a fine job for it's price range... But, a fine job isn't what a lot of us are looking for....

[Robb Mac]

If I had the Oppo 570HD player the first two things to change would be the
stock cord and the fuse.
Use the Polarized adapter and experiment with good after market cords.
Open the player and either clean the fuse ends with Flitz metal polish or replace with an audiophile grade fuse.

I have used Flitz on my four fuses in my Sony SCD-1 with very
positive sonic results.

http://www.aaudioimports.com/store/ProductDetail.asp?catID=38&subCatID=28&productID=71

http://www.vhaudio.com/acplugadapters.html

http://www.vhaudio.com/images/dvdiec-pol.jpg

[Robb Mac]

For Oppo DV970HD Two-Channel Stereo users:

Note: Use the front left/right output and NOT the mixed output for best audio quality sound.

http://www.nuforce.com/products-intamps.htm

[peterS]

worth noting that oppo is giving me a very hard time returning this

[wolfgang]

Oppo appear to be another independent company that come from one of the largest Chinese OEM/ODM providers. Certainly much larger then I expected when first heard about the 971H. In fact the way things are developed nowadays it does not suprise me anymore to know a lot of expensive toys we're using were originated from these few companies.

[bigburner]

For Oppo DV970HD Two-Channel Stereo users:

Note: Use the front left/right output and NOT the mixed output for best audio quality sound.

http://www.nuforce.com/products-intamps.htm

Here is the full text from NuForce's web site. Food for thought...

In comparing to one of the better SACD/CD player, the $3496 Marantz SA11S1, Oppo DV970HD came hair- closed to Marantz in SACD and CD playback. Marantz was a tad more relax and expansive, but the Oppo hold its own and with plenty of PRaT (Pace, Rhythm and Timbre) that even Marantz couldn't quite match. In fact, using a better audio interconnect could immediately tipped the scale towards the Oppo - it's that closed! With a high-bit-rate DVD-Audio or DVD recording (96/24-bit or 192/24-bit), Oppo was in a class all by itself.

Note: Use the front left/right output and NOT the mixed output for best audio quality sound.

[peterS]

ive warmed up to it a bit... still inferior bass and soundstage but its nice to be able to listen to sacd's again w/o spending 1k

[brac]

I'm using the 971H (used only for movies)and sending a digital coax to my pre-amp. Is this the thing to do or should I be using the 5.1 output? Preamp is a S-N p-965. vid goes directly to pJ.

Also I am still confused about what settings to use, for full screen versus wide screen, as I have menus in the oppo as well as the in the SP-5000 (infocus PJ).

[bigburner]

brac, I'm a new 971H owner, and I believe that it is preferable to use the digital coax to your pre-amp as long as your pre-amp is a reasonably good one. Oppo Digital are quite open about the fact that they haven't put a lot of investment into the audio side of the 971H. Hence it's preferable to pass the digital audio signal out of the 971H into the pre-amp and let the higher quality DAC in the pre-amp do the conversion.

With regards to your question on video, I think the answer depends on whether you are using DVI or component out of your 971H. When I use DVI, the choice of settings on my plasma is limited to 16:9 and 4:3. In other words, the 971H is manipulating the signal. If I use component out of my 971H, then the full range of settings is available on my plasma. In other words, the plasma is manipulating the signal. I use DVI out because the picture quality is better than component. That's because the high quality video chip in the 971H only works with the DVI output.

brac, don't be afraid to email Oppo Digital. They provide a great after-sales support service for people like us who want to get the best out of their new toy.

Nigel.

PS. HT experts, if I've got any of this wrong, then please yell out.