I debated long and hard whether to make this change from my Electronic Visionary Systems (EVS)-modified Oppo BDP-105D. Its immediate predecessor, the BDP-105, is the subject of this prior thread of mine.
The Oppo UDP-205, which is Oppo's successor to the BDP-105D, has been the subject of a legion of reviews, most highly complimentary about both its audio and video prowess. What finally persuaded me to take the plunge, however, were the comments by Ric Schulz of EVS who says on his Website that as of September 2017 he stopped modifying the 105 and 105D since "[y]ou can get much better sound with a less modified Oppo 205," among other units.
I'm a long-time Oppo believer. I've owned every top Oppo player since the company started, regularly upgrading to the latest-and-greatest Oppo player soon after it became available. What held me up when the UDP-205 was announced?
A good part of it was a refusal to believe that any player could sound significantly better than the EVS-modded 105 through its analog outputs. See that prior thread for details.
Another reason is that in the last couple of years I've been using my Oppo 105 and 105D primarily as transports, with the DAC being either a Lyngdorf TDAI-2170, Benchmark DAC-3 DX, or Benchmark DAC-3 HGC. These changes preserved all that was so good about the EVS-modded Oppo used through its balanced analog outputs while adding further sonic refinements (e.g., blacker background, yet more analog-like, relaxed high frequency presentation, greater yet three-dimensionality, etc.) Perhaps these further sonic refinements resulted from the latest thinking in DAC chips. In the case of the Benchmark DAC-3, that involves the use of ESS Technology ES9028PRO DAC chips. I had to wonder whether the improvements I heard with these new DACs were making whatever positive audible effects the EVS mods had on the 105/105D sound much less relevant. In other words, why should I bother buying the latest Oppo if I'm only planning to use it as a transport and it's really just the latest DACs that are making the sonic improvements I'm hearing?
A further reason was the ability of the 105/105D to decode HDCD discs. I have a lot of Reference Recordings CD encoded with the HDCD process. Listening to HDCDs without decoding is not acceptable, to my ears. The new Oppo UDP-205 does not decode HDCD discs, this apparently because the latest ESS chips and most other current DAC chips have abandoned that function.
And I also was loathe to give up the native Tidal streaming of which the Oppo 105/105D are capable. This streaming sounds at least as good as any other method I'd tried and puts less drain on the battery of my iPhone 6 since with the Oppo doing the streaming, all the iPhone powers is the Oppo remote control app, rather than the phone also being responsible to play and stream the music via Airplay to my Squeezebox Touch or Apple Airport Express. With the UDP-205, Oppo stripped its top player of all native Internet audio and video streaming capabilities, perhaps because of the increasing popularity and availability of streaming via computers, phones, pads, and other dedicated low-cost Internet streamers (e.g., Roku, Chromecast, Amazon Fire, Apple TV, etc.)
On the other hand . . . . In using the Oppo 105/105D as a transport feeding an external DAC, I have primarily been using its audio-only HDMI output. Many experiments have convinced me that this output actually sounds a bit better than the coax output even when the coax is favored by feeding it directly to the coax input of the Benchmark DAC, versus the HDMI output of the Oppo feeding the HDMI input of my Kanex Pro Audio De-Embedder and then via the coax output of the Kanex to the Benchmark coax input. I noted that the Oppo UDP-205 claims to clean up the jitter of its audio-only HDMI output with new circuitry. That might benefit the sonics since, even with the superb jitter immunity of the Benchmark DAC-3 (as documented in the manufacturer's and reviewers' test reports), I hear at least slight differences among digital cables connecting sources to the DAC-3. Thus, I reasoned, cleaning up the Oppo's HDMI output might create an audible improvement even feeding my Benchmark DAC-3 HGC.
As far as my HDCD collection is concerned, I've discovered that most, if not all of these, are available in decoded format via Tidal. Thus, I can listen to these in basically full fidelity via Tidal. In my comparisons of the Tidal version A/Bed against playback of the HDCDs in my system via the EVS-modified BDP-105D, there is very little difference, so little that I cannot be sure that differences are there at all in many cases. By comparison, the difference between non-decoded HDCD sound and the sound decoded is instantly apparent and always in favor of decoding, so much so that listening to non-decoded HDCDs is just not a pleasant experience. Plus, some of the best-sounding HDCDs from Reference Recordings are available in HRx data disc format. These sound better than the HDCD version via my EVS-modded Oppo. The new Oppo UHP-205 carries forward the older players' ability to play these 24/176.4 data discs.
As to the lack of native Tidal streaming in the new UHP-205, my system already has two other methods of streaming Tidal via Airplay. I can stream Tidal via Airplay either from my iPhone 6 to the Squeezebox Touch (which natively supports both Tidal and Deezer) or to the Apple Airport Express. Yes, this uses more phone battery juice than native Tidal streaming, but so far it is not a huge issue. In any event, I plan to upgrade to a new iPhone soon, anyway, and a new iPhone with a new battery should be less affected by the battery drain. Also, I've very recently acquired a new native Tidal streamer (more about this in another soon-to-be-written thread), so the UDP-205's lack of native Tidal streaming really isn't an issue for me anymore.
I took the plunge. The UDP-205 has replaced the EVS-modified Oppo BDP-105D in my system. I have not had it modified (yet, at least). I'm even using it in more-or-less stock form. The changes I've made are tweaks, not modifications, since they are easily reversible with no "surgery" to the unit.
I'm using the stock feet and have left the ventilated metal cover in place. I have added Cardas caps to all the unused male and female RCA and XLR jacks, as I did with the 105D. I also have attached an EVS Ground Enhancer to the ground lug (something new for an Oppo player) on the back panel; for the 105D I had a EVS Ground Enhancer attached to one of the unused RCA jacks. I'm using the same aftermarket Absolute Power Cord II I was using before and the same Caig Deoxit Gold GL100 fluid to treat all the unsoldered connections to the player as before. The support system for the player is now less elaborate, eschewing the three-point suspension which used Walker lead pucks and DH cones. The UDP-205 now sits on its four stock feet centered atop my Ikea Lack table (the 105D was placed at the forward edge of the table) the table enhanced and leveled as before with felt pads between the Lack legs and wood floor. The center of the Lack table is damped by a large Bright Star Audio Little Rock damping weight (itself with felt padding on the underside contacting the Lack tabletop) and the Oppo sits centered atop that Little Rock platform. The UDP-205's metal cover is now damped by a smaller Little Rock (again with felt on the bottom which contacts the Oppo top cover). This Little Rock is small enough not to cover up all the ventilation holes in the top cover of the Oppo.
Connections cables between the Oppo UDP-205 and the Benchmark DAC-3 HCG are the same as before. One meter of Blue Jeans Series FE HDMI cable to Kanex Pro Audio De-Embedder, to one meter of Blue Jeans coax digital cable, to the Benchmark.
So how does the "stock" Oppo UHP-205 sonically compare in this set up to the EVS-modified Oppo BDP-105? I knew within just a very few seconds playing a familiar track that the sound was not "just as good," but was in fact not only different but definitely improved. The bass is both fuller and yet more controlled in the midbass, with deeper low-bass extension. The background is blacker yet. Playback is more analog-like in the sense of being relaxed. Highs are silky smooth, again analog-like. Staging and imaging are yet more three dimensional. Distortion of all kinds seems lower.
Remember, these changes have nothing to do with the change from the ES9018 DAC chip in the older player to the latest ES9038 chip in the UDP-205 since in both instances the player is being used only as a transport, not as a DAC. Perhaps the HDMI de-jittering is what's causing the perceived improvements, but that's just speculation.
Since I originally planned to use my aftermarket Walker/DH footer arrangement, I detached the original feet as part of getting the UDP-205 ready for insertion in my system. It was then that I noticed that the stock feet are much different in the UDP-205 than they were in the BDP-105/105D. With the BDP-105/105D and all prior Oppos, the feet were lightweight and mostly hard plastic, adding only minimal "give" to the suspension. The new UDP-205 stock feet are surprisingly heavy. They feel like they are solid metal. Also, there is a substantial amount of quite compliant rubbery material in the center of each foot, giving the stock feet considerably more give. I also noticed that the chassis, as well as the chassis cover, are quite dead on the UDP-205, unlike prior Oppos. For these reasons, I decided to leave both the stock feet and the chassis cover in place, merely damping the top cover further with the Bright Star Little Rock weight. With that weight in place, the chassis and its cover sound dead indeed in response to my ultra-scientific finger-tap test.
Functionally, the UDP-205 disc player's operation is quite similiar to that of other top-Oppos in its lineage. It is mechanically quieter in operation, however, as well as being a bit speedier in terms of all aspects of disc loading. One very nice change to the remote control is the fact that the remote wand's backlighting feature is now motion responsive. Pick it up, and it lights up automatically for several seconds without having to find and touch the old light button. Very handy for use in a semi-darkened room, as I frequently listen. There is also an updated phone app just for this player.
Oppo players continue to impress me as very high sonic value propositions. While I wish the HDCD decoding and native audio/video streaming functions were still there, I can certainly understand why the decisions to drop these features were made. The price only increased by $100 and the sonics are definitely better. The EVS-modified BDP-105 player trounced the sonics of the stock BDP-105. I originally had the stock version and had another BDP-105 unit modified by EVS. I was thus able to directly compare the stock and modified units and it was no comparison. Now, at least as a transport, the "stock" UDP-205, while perhaps not sonically "trouncing" the EVS-modded BDP-105D, does sound better, not just different, and by a margin easily noticeable within the first few seconds of playback of familiar material.
The Oppo UDP-205, which is Oppo's successor to the BDP-105D, has been the subject of a legion of reviews, most highly complimentary about both its audio and video prowess. What finally persuaded me to take the plunge, however, were the comments by Ric Schulz of EVS who says on his Website that as of September 2017 he stopped modifying the 105 and 105D since "[y]ou can get much better sound with a less modified Oppo 205," among other units.
I'm a long-time Oppo believer. I've owned every top Oppo player since the company started, regularly upgrading to the latest-and-greatest Oppo player soon after it became available. What held me up when the UDP-205 was announced?
A good part of it was a refusal to believe that any player could sound significantly better than the EVS-modded 105 through its analog outputs. See that prior thread for details.
Another reason is that in the last couple of years I've been using my Oppo 105 and 105D primarily as transports, with the DAC being either a Lyngdorf TDAI-2170, Benchmark DAC-3 DX, or Benchmark DAC-3 HGC. These changes preserved all that was so good about the EVS-modded Oppo used through its balanced analog outputs while adding further sonic refinements (e.g., blacker background, yet more analog-like, relaxed high frequency presentation, greater yet three-dimensionality, etc.) Perhaps these further sonic refinements resulted from the latest thinking in DAC chips. In the case of the Benchmark DAC-3, that involves the use of ESS Technology ES9028PRO DAC chips. I had to wonder whether the improvements I heard with these new DACs were making whatever positive audible effects the EVS mods had on the 105/105D sound much less relevant. In other words, why should I bother buying the latest Oppo if I'm only planning to use it as a transport and it's really just the latest DACs that are making the sonic improvements I'm hearing?
A further reason was the ability of the 105/105D to decode HDCD discs. I have a lot of Reference Recordings CD encoded with the HDCD process. Listening to HDCDs without decoding is not acceptable, to my ears. The new Oppo UDP-205 does not decode HDCD discs, this apparently because the latest ESS chips and most other current DAC chips have abandoned that function.
And I also was loathe to give up the native Tidal streaming of which the Oppo 105/105D are capable. This streaming sounds at least as good as any other method I'd tried and puts less drain on the battery of my iPhone 6 since with the Oppo doing the streaming, all the iPhone powers is the Oppo remote control app, rather than the phone also being responsible to play and stream the music via Airplay to my Squeezebox Touch or Apple Airport Express. With the UDP-205, Oppo stripped its top player of all native Internet audio and video streaming capabilities, perhaps because of the increasing popularity and availability of streaming via computers, phones, pads, and other dedicated low-cost Internet streamers (e.g., Roku, Chromecast, Amazon Fire, Apple TV, etc.)
On the other hand . . . . In using the Oppo 105/105D as a transport feeding an external DAC, I have primarily been using its audio-only HDMI output. Many experiments have convinced me that this output actually sounds a bit better than the coax output even when the coax is favored by feeding it directly to the coax input of the Benchmark DAC, versus the HDMI output of the Oppo feeding the HDMI input of my Kanex Pro Audio De-Embedder and then via the coax output of the Kanex to the Benchmark coax input. I noted that the Oppo UDP-205 claims to clean up the jitter of its audio-only HDMI output with new circuitry. That might benefit the sonics since, even with the superb jitter immunity of the Benchmark DAC-3 (as documented in the manufacturer's and reviewers' test reports), I hear at least slight differences among digital cables connecting sources to the DAC-3. Thus, I reasoned, cleaning up the Oppo's HDMI output might create an audible improvement even feeding my Benchmark DAC-3 HGC.
As far as my HDCD collection is concerned, I've discovered that most, if not all of these, are available in decoded format via Tidal. Thus, I can listen to these in basically full fidelity via Tidal. In my comparisons of the Tidal version A/Bed against playback of the HDCDs in my system via the EVS-modified BDP-105D, there is very little difference, so little that I cannot be sure that differences are there at all in many cases. By comparison, the difference between non-decoded HDCD sound and the sound decoded is instantly apparent and always in favor of decoding, so much so that listening to non-decoded HDCDs is just not a pleasant experience. Plus, some of the best-sounding HDCDs from Reference Recordings are available in HRx data disc format. These sound better than the HDCD version via my EVS-modded Oppo. The new Oppo UHP-205 carries forward the older players' ability to play these 24/176.4 data discs.
As to the lack of native Tidal streaming in the new UHP-205, my system already has two other methods of streaming Tidal via Airplay. I can stream Tidal via Airplay either from my iPhone 6 to the Squeezebox Touch (which natively supports both Tidal and Deezer) or to the Apple Airport Express. Yes, this uses more phone battery juice than native Tidal streaming, but so far it is not a huge issue. In any event, I plan to upgrade to a new iPhone soon, anyway, and a new iPhone with a new battery should be less affected by the battery drain. Also, I've very recently acquired a new native Tidal streamer (more about this in another soon-to-be-written thread), so the UDP-205's lack of native Tidal streaming really isn't an issue for me anymore.
I took the plunge. The UDP-205 has replaced the EVS-modified Oppo BDP-105D in my system. I have not had it modified (yet, at least). I'm even using it in more-or-less stock form. The changes I've made are tweaks, not modifications, since they are easily reversible with no "surgery" to the unit.
I'm using the stock feet and have left the ventilated metal cover in place. I have added Cardas caps to all the unused male and female RCA and XLR jacks, as I did with the 105D. I also have attached an EVS Ground Enhancer to the ground lug (something new for an Oppo player) on the back panel; for the 105D I had a EVS Ground Enhancer attached to one of the unused RCA jacks. I'm using the same aftermarket Absolute Power Cord II I was using before and the same Caig Deoxit Gold GL100 fluid to treat all the unsoldered connections to the player as before. The support system for the player is now less elaborate, eschewing the three-point suspension which used Walker lead pucks and DH cones. The UDP-205 now sits on its four stock feet centered atop my Ikea Lack table (the 105D was placed at the forward edge of the table) the table enhanced and leveled as before with felt pads between the Lack legs and wood floor. The center of the Lack table is damped by a large Bright Star Audio Little Rock damping weight (itself with felt padding on the underside contacting the Lack tabletop) and the Oppo sits centered atop that Little Rock platform. The UDP-205's metal cover is now damped by a smaller Little Rock (again with felt on the bottom which contacts the Oppo top cover). This Little Rock is small enough not to cover up all the ventilation holes in the top cover of the Oppo.
Connections cables between the Oppo UDP-205 and the Benchmark DAC-3 HCG are the same as before. One meter of Blue Jeans Series FE HDMI cable to Kanex Pro Audio De-Embedder, to one meter of Blue Jeans coax digital cable, to the Benchmark.
So how does the "stock" Oppo UHP-205 sonically compare in this set up to the EVS-modified Oppo BDP-105? I knew within just a very few seconds playing a familiar track that the sound was not "just as good," but was in fact not only different but definitely improved. The bass is both fuller and yet more controlled in the midbass, with deeper low-bass extension. The background is blacker yet. Playback is more analog-like in the sense of being relaxed. Highs are silky smooth, again analog-like. Staging and imaging are yet more three dimensional. Distortion of all kinds seems lower.
Remember, these changes have nothing to do with the change from the ES9018 DAC chip in the older player to the latest ES9038 chip in the UDP-205 since in both instances the player is being used only as a transport, not as a DAC. Perhaps the HDMI de-jittering is what's causing the perceived improvements, but that's just speculation.
Since I originally planned to use my aftermarket Walker/DH footer arrangement, I detached the original feet as part of getting the UDP-205 ready for insertion in my system. It was then that I noticed that the stock feet are much different in the UDP-205 than they were in the BDP-105/105D. With the BDP-105/105D and all prior Oppos, the feet were lightweight and mostly hard plastic, adding only minimal "give" to the suspension. The new UDP-205 stock feet are surprisingly heavy. They feel like they are solid metal. Also, there is a substantial amount of quite compliant rubbery material in the center of each foot, giving the stock feet considerably more give. I also noticed that the chassis, as well as the chassis cover, are quite dead on the UDP-205, unlike prior Oppos. For these reasons, I decided to leave both the stock feet and the chassis cover in place, merely damping the top cover further with the Bright Star Little Rock weight. With that weight in place, the chassis and its cover sound dead indeed in response to my ultra-scientific finger-tap test.
Functionally, the UDP-205 disc player's operation is quite similiar to that of other top-Oppos in its lineage. It is mechanically quieter in operation, however, as well as being a bit speedier in terms of all aspects of disc loading. One very nice change to the remote control is the fact that the remote wand's backlighting feature is now motion responsive. Pick it up, and it lights up automatically for several seconds without having to find and touch the old light button. Very handy for use in a semi-darkened room, as I frequently listen. There is also an updated phone app just for this player.
Oppo players continue to impress me as very high sonic value propositions. While I wish the HDCD decoding and native audio/video streaming functions were still there, I can certainly understand why the decisions to drop these features were made. The price only increased by $100 and the sonics are definitely better. The EVS-modified BDP-105 player trounced the sonics of the stock BDP-105. I originally had the stock version and had another BDP-105 unit modified by EVS. I was thus able to directly compare the stock and modified units and it was no comparison. Now, at least as a transport, the "stock" UDP-205, while perhaps not sonically "trouncing" the EVS-modded BDP-105D, does sound better, not just different, and by a margin easily noticeable within the first few seconds of playback of familiar material.
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