Reference disc player...UDP 205 or Marantz?

Hi jonasandezekiel,

I haven’t heard any of the better Marantz players so I cannot give you any useful advice on how it compares to the Oppo 105 I have owned for the past 2 years. I won’t claim the Oppo is the best available since I’ve not auditioned many of the higher-end and expensive units either.
But I can tell you that the 105 is a very impressive and versatile player that I consider my personal reference player and, by all reports, the new 205 is at least as good audio wise and better video wise since it’s now 4K. I never thought I was buying ’the best’ but thought I was getting a very good performer that would do a lot of things very well. I reasoned that more expensive players would likely perform better in certain aspects but these improvements would probably would be marginal in nature and the large increase in price would need to be balanced against any perceived marginal increases in performance.
I agree with your view that someone’s personal reference component needs to be determined within the constraints of their budget.
I thought I was buying a very good Bluray player with an excellent audio section at a bargain price of $1,199. I’m very pleased to tell you that’s exactly what I got.
The Oppo’s most impressive qualities are its versatility and audio performance. I use the 105 as a preamp, 5.1 surround sound processor, stand alone dac for music streaming as well as a high quality video processor for Blurays and cable hdtv. The audio quality is so good in fact, that I sold my Parasound AV-2500 surround processor I used for 5.1 surround and my beloved VTL 2.5 preamp (with NOS Mullard tubes and ht bypass) that I used for 2-ch music playback. I never thought I’d remove the VTL from my system but, after extensive comparison of the sound with and without it in my system, I had to admit my music sounded just as sweet and dimensional using the 105 as a music preamp. This was especially hard to discover since I had just recently swapped in a new set of expensive NOS Mullard tubes in the VTL. The 105’s audio performance via its XLR and SE outputs is really that good; I had to be honest and trust my ears.
FYI- Oppo’s customer support is also very good and they helped me setup my computer audio system with my laptop running JRiver, a NAS and the Oppo as dac all communicating via my home wi-fi. The multiple Sabre 9018 dac chips in the Oppo are excellent, too, though I believe the 205 has the latest Sabre 9028 chips.

Hope this helped and best wishes,
Tim

@boneman73, Interesting, thank you!

Tom

A little late here but compared a black friday oppo udp-205 deal vs. my rega apollo cd player and the rega apollo (sub $1000 cd player) is a far superior cd player. I’m sure oppo does well in many ways but it was no comparison to dedicated rega cd player. I cannot speak for the Marantz SA-14S1 cd player but in my opinion there’s a lot of hype behind oppo's sound quality.   I would agree though oppo is very versatile but master of none.

Additionally, in my comparison with Sony’s ability to play the 4K movies vs oppo, the oppo udp-205 had slightly better movie image but could not justify the price tag vs the cheaper sony 4k (UBP‑X800 player $149 BF deal down from $299).  

2 channel set-up:
Rega apollo cd player
Mcintosh mc275 tube amp
Mcintosh c2300 pre-amp
Wilson Audio Sophia3

Additionally, in my comparison with Sony’s ability to play the 4K movies vs oppo, the oppo udp-205 had slightly better movie image but could not justify the price tag vs the cheaper sony 4k (UBP‑X800 player $149 BF deal down from $299).

Oppo UDP-205 could definitely justify the price difference.

Fact be told that video - just like audio - is an expensive hobby where subtle, marginal and incremental gains are indeed expensive.

I agree with your audio appraisal that it’s versatile but master of none (albeit it is no slouch in the audio department) but as far as video is concerned really nothing even remotely close to its price tag can beat it. Combine its video performance with very good (and in some circles extremely good) audio and the overall effectiveness is such that from a value perspective its impossible to beat (currently and in today’s market). If you’re happy/content with the $149 player that’s fine too.

     I consider the Oppo 105's  CD playback to be very good thanks to its overbuilt power supply with large toroidal transformer, separate and isolated CD playback circuitry and excellent Sabre 9018 and 9028 dac chips usually found in much more expensive players. 
     I believe its CD playback performance would fair very well in comparisons to a wide variety of CD only players from a wide variety of price points.
     However, I think it's important to point out a few facts that readers of this thread should keep in mind, especially when comparisons are made to components that are much less versatile such as the Rega Apollo CD player which can only playback redbook CDs.
     The Oppo 105 and the current 205 are 'virtual Swiss army knives'.  They are both primarily high quality Blu-ray players with impressive video processors, HDMI connectivity and surround sound processors with up to 7.1 channel decoding to analog audio outputs.  They both are able to play back virtually any silver disc: CDS, SACDs, DVDs, DVD-As and even CD-Rs.  They both can be used to stream high resolution audio files (up to and including DSD) either via hard-wire or wireless connections through their very good internal Sabre dacs.  External hard drive storage units can be connected to store ripped CDs and downloaded hi-res music files.
     Just something to keep in mind when comparisons between these Oppos and less versatile  players are made.  Others may dismiss this extreme versatility with comments such as "Jack of all trades, but master of none". 
     After using the Oppo 105 for about 2 years, however, the original unshortened quote seems more appropriate to me:

    “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”

Tim