Oppo as transport

I have discussed this very question with several Audiogon members in private messages recently. My experience was the comparison between a modified Jolida 100A, stock Oppo 980 through a PS Audio Digital Link III, and the Jolida through the DL III. The Oppo alone was good, the Jolida alone was better, the Oppo through the DL III was even better and the Jolida through the DL III was the best. Each step was noticeable. I don't know for sure why the Jolida was a better transport but I suspect it has to do with the large power supply. What the Jolida-DL III combo brought to the table was spatiality, soundstaging, articulation and realism. So far, it is the best I have experienced in my home and I am content (for awhile!). I suspect that the Oppo is a decent transport but you can certainly improve upon it. The PS Audio Digital Link III is simply superb. The DAC makes all the difference. The transport helps get it to a higher level.

While I appreciate all the things the Oppo does reasonably well for a very cheap price, I wouldn't recommend it as a transport. I recently compared the Oppo 970HD with an old Rotel RCD-971, both feeding a California Alpha DAC through the same coaxial cable, and the Rotel was the obvious winner, with better focus, clarity and weight; the Oppo signal sounded leaner, more artificial and less relaxed.

I can't understand why someone would want to use the Oppo as a transport in a high quality rig, like some Stereophile review suggests.

Well... to be true, the reviewer used the Oppo to feed high-rez material to a 24/96 DAC (something the old Alpha can't take); anyway, I wasn't particularly impressed about its performance with 16 bits material.

Yes, I think that the higher the quality of the DAC the more it makes up for any shortcomings in the transport. My discussions earlier in this thread were all about feeding a signal to an upsampling to DSD DAC, with a very robust output stage and a zero-jitter clock (claimed by the maker and I'm waiting to see the test results).

Dave

Wow...I'm surprised at the number of responses! Just got home and checked this thread and have so many answers already. Awesome!

What I was worried, but kind of thought this to be the case, is that Oppo's abilities are blown out of proportion a bit. We tend to get overly excited about a newcomer product. This happens often. Seems like Oppo's popularity as audiophile transport is a bit hyped.

I remember when I had Bel Canto DAC2 and was using my $60 Philips dvd player as a transport it was good. When I switched to Sony 7700 it was really a nice improvement.
When I auditioned Bel Canto DAC3 recently, I tried Slim Devices Transporter as a transport into DAC3 and it was good. but when I used my Audio Research CD3MkII cd player as a transport into Bel Canto DAC3 it totally blew away the Transporter in a performance as a pure transport.

I guess I was day dreaming when I was thinking that Oppo can provide adequate performance as a transport. I guess I'll have to research other options. Perhaps another Sony DVP-S7700 would be a good choice, except these things could be quirky with reading CD-Rs. I'll have to re-think this approach a little now.

Thanks to all who responded.

Audphile1,

I've used my mod'd Oppo 971H as a transport and it is about the equal of the dedicated CD players and transports I've used. However, it is highly modified, so I can't compare it to a stock unit. BTW, the mod is so good that I didn't notice any improvement by adding an external NOS DAC.

In the past I've tried using a Sony S7700ES, S9000ES and NS999ES as transports and none of them equaled the performance of the dedicated CDP (used as transport) that I had in the house at the time.

If you really want a transport and DAC, I would highly recommend picking up a dedicated transport or high-ish quality CDP instead of a DVD player. In my experience, they sound better and are much less hassle in that they don't require any configuration, video screen, etc., and they typically load the CD much quicker.

However, if you really need to cut down on the total devices in your system, I understand the desire to combine CD and DVD playback into one device. But if the goal is to cut down on audio shelf real estate, maybe a quality mod'd player would give you enough performance for all types of shiny disc and you could replace both the transport and DAC with one box that has even more total functionality.

Enjoy,

TIC