Dry docking an Oppo

AndyMoss posted:

Hi all,

 I'm not really in the market for a new BluRay player at the moment but was thinking of picking up an Oppo 203 'while stocks last'. I'd imagine my current player and a year or two left in it, and I'm not one for replacing stuff that's still working OK. From an operational point of view do you think it’s OK to have one stuck in the back of a cupboard for that time until its needed, or am I just best off seeing what’s available at the time I need a new player (if indeed they still exist …)?

 Thanks in advance.

Good question.  I guess it'd be fine being stored as ordinarily you'd assume the mechanical parts would fail at some stage but not through limited usage, but there'd always be outliers.

I got a 203 for 4k Blu Ray duties about 18 months ago and I like it a lot.  Fine player which does what it does with aplomb, and no gimmicky extras I don't want.

Recently went for a 205 which I may not use much, it was just one of those 'if I don't get one now I'll never get another chance' type impulsive purchases, which is where I suspect you're at with the 203 - there do seem to be a few still available.

Ultimately the 203/205 should sound as good in 5-10 years as they do now - trouble is you just don't know if there'll be a better or equivalent disc spinner available in a few years time let alone 5-10 years.

We may well get 8k Blu Ray or something, but I honestly think optical video media will succumb to market pressures sooner than audio.  Most of us play audio albums time after time, and are seen as reasonable value if you buy them.  Video media is harder to justify for me, bt doesn't;t stop me buying it - there are very few films I'll watch more than a couple of times, but there are a few dozen I'd happily watch agin and again, and actually would buy better quality versions if the come along - trouble is before long I think streaming quality will be so close to optical media quality for the majority that there will be little appetite for physical media.

Thanks AC - I think I might go for it. I'm pretty wedded to BluRay at the moment - I don't buy much but hope CinemaParadiso don't shut down. On a superficial level I like getting stuff in the post, but it also looks like video streaming is going to be much more fragmented than audio streaming as content providers start keeping rights to themselves. It won't be long before you need to Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Apple and bunch of others to cover what you want to watch (and Netflix are obviously desperate to start putting up their prices ASAP). Although it been depressing to see how quickly streaming seems to have pushed people from watching what they want to, to having them watch  whatever they are presented with.

Why not just get the Cambridge cxuhd. It's supposed to be slightly better.

I did look at the Cambridge. The USB port is in a pretty inconvenient position. The main drawback was it doesn't have a DAC. This didn't seem a problem at first (I run my player through my SuperUniti DAC), but when the SU has to go out for service/ repair it means I can't play either music or watch films while its away. At least with the Oppo I can run the audio through the TV (and I guess I can use it as a temporary streamer if I've got my feature list corrrect).

AndyMoss posted:

Hi all,

 I'm not really in the market for a new BluRay player at the moment but was thinking of picking up an Oppo 203 'while stocks last'. I'd imagine my current player and a year or two left in it, and I'm not one for replacing stuff that's still working OK. From an operational point of view do you think it’s OK to have one stuck in the back of a cupboard for that time until its needed, or am I just best off seeing what’s available at the time I need a new player (if indeed they still exist …)?

 Thanks in advance.

Your decision of course, but if it was me I'd buy the 203 (which is a superb player), use it now, and sell your old player whilst it's still working. Life's too short to worry about what might happen in the future.

Hi Andy,

Is the Cambridge still a re-build of the Oppo? Worth double checking if you are tempted.

I use my Oppo as a decoder & pre for AV, where it beat my AV2. I too thought about buying a new box for storage, but decided not to.

Technology moves fast and the factors are such that I will wait until something happens before committing. Your current player may last for 5 years.

My current Phillips super widescreen while superb when bought is now old hat ......but, it still does what I want. I don't intend to replace it until it stops working, at the moment; I am NOT going to immediately chase 4k, 8k et al.

As for my Oppo 105D, as and when it fails I will look at the marketplace and make a decision on how things look holistically. It may be the point at which I do a wholesale change on the AV front, and I may then view having a NOS Oppo in the loft as an anchor rather than a safety blanket.

M

count.d posted:

Why not just get the Cambridge cxuhd. It's supposed to be slightly better.

I’ve just taken this route, the reviews rate it higher for SQ, which I’m after for Blu-ray concerts.

In case anyone is interested, Peter Tyson lists the multi-region version of the UDP-205 as potentially available in August.

I think they do the modification themselves so perhaps using up the multi-region mod with any UDP-205's they can source.