Oppo > SuperUniti

I won't hazard a guess, and will be interested to hear your findings.  If you happened to have CD5i or better available, and a DIN lead, that would be interesting to compare, too!

Nick

Ditto.

I have been running the Oppo for nearly a year now and recently decided to o/p the audio straight into my SuperNait AV i/p so I have effectively removed the preamp (I was feeding it into the CD i/p of the SuperNait). I'm now thinking of replacing the SN with a NAP250(comments anyone)

The SQ of the Oppo is very good, for me I was impressed with the low noise floor and low frequency response when I first started to use such (it does take a while to burn in). I'm not an expert at these things but I would have to spend a significant sum of money to improve on the Oppo's performance.  And it also plays BluRay rather well!

I have also been able to remove my AV Reciever by using the Oppo 5.1 o/p's directly, this was enabled by the purchase of a NAP175.  So not only do I have quality surround sound but less boxes as well.

Karl

So the Oppo is now connected and has been running constantly burning in since Christmas morning.

At present, I only have the unit connected via analogue RCA... so am using the Oppo DAC solely with my Bluray playing and CD playing.

First impressions... the unit does sound very closed... this was anticipated as I had read these units take a very long time to run in. I'm probably at about 80 hours now and some of the edges are starting to round off a little, but I can definitely report that the Oppo DAC while good, can't compare to the DAC in my Superuniti. 

That said, the video performance is spectacular, and the audio is certainly good.... just not anywhere near Naim standards with respect to pace, attack and slam, nor with respect to separation of instruments and soundstage.

My conclusion based on the run in thus far is that if you are buying this unit for Bluray playback and an enjoyable audio experience, you won't be disappointed. But if you think you are going to get an audiophile level piece at the same level as a Naim piece of gear, you would be better suited sticking with your favourite brand.

Once I have enough pennies saved to get a decent Toslink cable, I'll try the unit as an audio transport and report my findings.

It will be interesting to see how it pans out, Banjo.

Probably fair to say that CD play (output via RCAs) is the weakest string to the Oppo's bow.  There are those who maintain the Oppo 95 actually sounded better in this config, due to its stacked DAC channels.

I feel the balanced XLR outputs improve things somewhat (though SuperUniti doesn't have such inputs ?), as does a very lengthy burn-in which you have mentioned.

With blu-ray I would expect the high bit & sample rates to yield a better result via the Oppo's DAC than the Naim's DAC, as I think the Oppo's digital SPDIF and optical outputs would be restricted to 48kHz (basically DVD res) like all blu-ray players nowadays.  But you never know....

The Oppo also performs extremely well with other digital file media played off network or USB device (especially the latter which now supports gapless) so its worth trying those options.  I find both are better than CD play.  And in either case, hi-res should be possible to output digitally - as far as I'm aware.

Be good to hear how you get along....

Interesting comments Karlos.

Here's an update after about 150 hours of burn in. 

I'd describe the SQ from Bluray audio (specifically music Blurays) as outstanding. Great soundstage and separation of instruments. Probably as good (or very very close) to 24/96 files streamed through my SuperUniti.

On the CD side of things the sound has opened up significantly, but is still not at the same level as CD flac files streamed through the SuperUniti. This is what I expected however, so it's not something that bothers me.

The above comments pertain entirely to audio output through the Oppo RCA outs into the SU. At some point in time I'll try digital out, but I suspect that Karlos' comments are correct and that the output is throttled. I won't ever use the Oppo for streaming as I have a better source for that with the SU... at some point I will try to use the asynchronous USB input on the SU, however I'm not in a big rush to do so. Nice to know the option is there as a potential backup if I ever have issues with my streamer.

I would be interested to try the balanced outputs on the SU... is there such a thing as a cable with balanced output connection and DIN on the other?

Hi Banjo,

To your last point, I really don't know whether such a cable exists.  However, if it does, and forms a safe connection, I suspect that it would no longer be "balanced" - and as such would not provide the theoretical advantages that this connection type can supposedly offer.  I must confess that this is moving into realms a little "techie" for my knowledge base, though ;-)

I forgot to mention that I have found SACD to provide the best sound of all from the Oppo.  It can convert these to PCM on playback, which the SU DAC could then handle, so that would be another thing to try out.  But I have no idea what sort of bit/sample rates would then be output digitally, and whether there would be a kind of strangulation as with blu-ray.....

Do give the digital i/p's a try, I have found them to be a move up from the CD player.  I would be interested in you're comments.  I was using the asynchronous i/p but recently moved to the USB i/p.  A 2 TB Hard Drive and the Oppo Mulitmedia app has enabled this.  And do you make use of the Pure Mode when playing music?

Karl