Universal Disc Player

[burnssimon]

Afternoon All,

Convinced myself I "need" a CD / SACD / BluRay player! Whilst not looking to re-ignite the debate on the relevance of these formats going forward, I was hoping for a steer.

What little reading I've done so far suggests Oppo, however am unsure of the differences (beyond price) of 103, 105, 203, 205. I think my requirements are realtively straight forward, play pretty much any format (upto BR 4K), I would also want it to have analogue surround out as my AVR doesn't have hdmi inputs.

If it has an HDMI input, great, I can stick the Shield through as well.

Budget, I'm expecting to pay £500+.

Thanks in advance...

 

[gibbsy]

All Oppo players will now be confined to the secondary market, including our own classifieds, never know your luck.

For new players it's fair to say that Pioneer have taken up the mantle of Oppo with the superb LX500 and it's bigger and much more expensive LX800 brother. The LX500 is an excellent multi channel player of SACD, blu ray audio and DVD-A. It's also a very very good player for both 1080 and 2160 discs.

Your biggest problem is finding a player outside of Oppo that has multi channel analogue. The LX models are restricted to stereo PCM. The biggest problem with wanting to source a multi analogue player is that you will be missing out on the highest audio output of blu ray audio. Take Bob Marley's Legend which is available on blu ray audio and it comes with a Dolby TrueHD and DTS MA HD audio 5.1 soundtrack.

You are missing lossless and uncompressed audio by not having a modern receiver.

 

[burnssimon]

Maybe a silly question, however would the Oppo not push out TrueHD / DTS through the analogue outputs?

 

[gibbsy]

The 205 will and support 7.1 via analogue by conversion within the unit, certainly Dolby TrueHD. In that respect it is far more versatile then the Pioneer players. I mean't to say that it's Atmos and DTS:X that cannot be converted 'in house' but that's not what you are looking for.

Again with the Pioneers all multi channel is done via HDMI and so the receiver would need to be able to decode DSD. Have you considered a standalone stereo SACD player and a BR player for film?

 

[burnssimon]

Ultimately I'll buy a Atmos enabled reciever and the analogue outputs will become obsolete but I love my Tag AVR32!

A dedicated SACD players is an option, however I'm still going to want the 5.1 analogue outputs - already have the SACD surround remix of Wish You Were Here on order!

 

[DT79]

The 203 also has 7.1ch analogue outs. Unfortunately both the Oppos are going for silly money these days.

An alternative approach would be to buy an older universal Blu-ray player, which will be much much cheaper and there are plenty of excellent models out there, then get a cheap 4K player and make do with using standard DD and DTS into your Tag via optical or coaxial on the latter, until you get a AVR/AVP with HDMI. Then you could switch to something like one of the Pioneers without having lost too much.

 

[Mark.Yudkin]

The Oppo UDP-205, which I have, is a vey nice machine. Oppo no longer manufacturer players, and the used price of the UDP-205 has not dropped even close to £500. Off hand, I can't think of any universal player with 7.1 analogue outputs at £500.

The Pioneer LX800 is not really comparable to the Oppo UDP-205. It does not have 7.1 outputs (so is not suitable for you)., It's also missing an HDMI input, ARC, and the separately addressable DAC that distinguishes the UDP-205 from the UDP-203. All it really shares is the ability to read all disc formats.

 

[burnssimon]

If I was looking at an Oppo and at least initially using the analogue outs, 105 or 203?

 

[Mark.Yudkin]

If I was looking at an Oppo and at least initially using the analogue outs, 105 or 203?

The Oppo BDP-105 is an older "universal" player, and is no longer universal - it will not play 4K disks.

Your first post indicated that you wanted a universal player that could play up to 4K, with Oppo this means the UDP-203 or UDP-205. Both models have an HDMI input (for your Shield) and 7.1 analogue outputs.

For a list of the differences between these model, see Understanding the Differences Between the UDP-203 and UDP-205.

 

[burnssimon]

203 or 205 it would have to be then!

Thanks Mark.

 

[DT79]

If I was looking at an Oppo and at least initially using the analogue outs, 105 or 203?

If you're happy to forego 4k compatibility for the time being or solution that separately (which was my suggestion above) then the Oppo 105 will be excellent. However the problem with that and even the 103 to a lesser extent is that they still go for crazy money for what they are. You could practically get a 203 for what a 105 will cost you.

That's why if you're prepared to forego 4k and get a 1080p blu-ray universal player i would go for the slightly older Marantz or Denon models*, which will still be great performers but will cost significantly less.

*I think both did models with 7.1 analogue outs.

 

[burnssimon]

In light of comments above, have got hold of a cheap 2nd hand SACD player with analogue outs.

Gives me the opportunity to see whether I'll actually listen that much to them and I can lust from afar at the Oppos!

Really appreciate everyone's help and advice.