The OPPO 205 has a digital coax out and your Krell Foundation 4K has digital coax in, are you running it that way? If not definitely give it a try. Not to take away from OPPO but they are not very musical IMHO, blu-ray players were designed for video. I prefer a designated CDP.
Best CDs
I'm new to Audiogon, and know the depth and breadth of the knowledge and experience of the people who post on the Forum, so I apologize for this amateur question. I'm strictly digital. I've just upgraded my system with an OPPO 205, Krell Theater 7WD, Krell Foundation 4K, and B & W 804s, 805s, and center speaker. I've played some CDs (old collection), and they sound awful. Is there a good brand or brands of CD and/or source that I can rely on for future purchases, or is it more complicated than that.
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+1 on the comments on the Oppo. I fail to understand why so many on this forum bought these for audio for $$$. I have Oppp 105 and also a Cambridge CXU, use for video ss systems. I play CD's using a transport and running an Audioquest digital cable (Coffee RCA) into a Cambridge 851N. The 851N is an upsampling player to 384KZ. I also play HD Tracks through this player and the CD's can sound amazing. The best CD's out there IMO are SHM from Japan, followed by Blu-spec CD2 (also Japanese) followed by MFSL gold. The very best CD's I have are a couple of Platinum SHM of early Steely Dan. |
If you read the Steve Hoffman Music Forums you will find that original issue (1980s) Cds are back in style, that is, they are often the preferred version. On those forums people have long debates over minute differences between different releases of a particular album as to which is better. A lot of the problem is the Loudness Wars. In the 90s, record companies started compressing the dynamics of Cds so that they sounded loud all the way through instead of having loud parts and quieter parts (check out the Stones "Blue and Lonesome" for an example). Cds from the 80s tend to have greater dynamic range (quieter quiet parts and louder loud parts). Not all low dynamic range Cds are in your face aggressive though. You can have a Cd that is low dynamic range but sounds good. At the Dynamic Range Database site linked above you want to find Cds that have a high rating, green numbers, if possible. Anyway, keep those old Cds. They may not be the problem. I agree with others that the Oppo is not the best option for music. Look into streaming too. That is definitely the direction music distribution is heading and you can get very good sound quality for reasonable prices for a separate streamer and DAC. It’s best to separate the functions because streamers don’t affect the sound as much as DACs (IMHO) and DACs are being improved steadily, so you might want to upgrade the DAC more frequently. I use the Bluesound Node 2 (now Node 2i) streamer. It's very easy to hook up and use and sounds good to me. |
Here are some alternate opinions on streamers: https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/top-music-streamer-for-2019-aurender-n10-s |
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