Good news that you were able to find a solution, I've heard really good things about the 105. I've still got a 103 that serves me well about 3 years in.
Oppo 105D high frequencey sizzling issue anyone help me suggesting a mod that i can do or?
Ya No .. so I have had the Oppo 105D since April 2014 and have enjoyed it and never had an issue .. until lately ..
I am getting a high frequency sizzling at the tweeters via the dedicated balanced 2 channel outs.
With less of a revealing interconnect one can not hear it at my listening distance of 10 ft but I do want to keep my WireWorlds Gold Eclipse 7s .. as they are so open and revealing ..
I know that its the Oppo as I have isolated and changed out speakers, cables, interconnects, power cords and by passed my power conditioner as well and all leads point to the noisy audio board.
So I contacted Oppo and it would be $119 for them to put in a new board .. very reasonable I think .. however they cant guarantee me that it will solve my issue as they cant duplicate my exact set up and interconnects..
with the above stated .. maybe I should look into a modification as we all know there is a lot of mods that can be and are done with the oppo 105.
Maybe I try things myself? Thinking of trying to emi rfi shielding the power transformer, power supply cover, transport lid
Any suggestions and real world experience that you may have are greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your time .
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Hi 213running Ya thats cool that you were able to tame the sibilance with better matching components .. my issue of course has nothing to do with sibilance But I am happy to say that I am now listening to a sizzle free sound .. I am running through the dedicated rca instead of the xlrs as where the problem occurs .. hopefully the rcas will remain sizzle free for years to come as I do like the Oppo. In defense to Oppo .. it is almost 3 years old and I will have to estimate that we use it atleast 4 hours a day 6 days a week. So we are looking at a conservative estimate of 4,000 to 5,000 hours on the dedicated balanced outs... |
I had a similar experience with an Oppo 95, but it was a somewhat strong sibilance that presented itself in the vocals, whenever an "s" was pronounced. It turned out the amp and pre were quite a bright combination that was having a cumulative effect on the highs. I only used the RCA's, and it was present only on certain brighter sounding tracks. I’ll never go back to that brand again. |
Oh wow!! Phew .. nice .. no more irritating sizzling tweeters! Granted I had to by pass the dedicated xlrs on the oppo and now I am running from the dedicated rcas .. been a few months since I heard such beautiful silence! Cant hear any sizzling from listening position and putting my ear to the tweeters only produce the usual hiss and no underlying sizzling! I guess I will run my oppo/system single ended for now and worry about figuring out / getting the balanced outs on the oppo fixed .. Still not sure what gives here .. ? |
Hi Nutty Yes I wanted to use my balanced connects for a complete balanced set up however under my current circumstance with the output noise from the balanced outs of the oppo I am now changing over to the rca out. Luckily I do have two Cardas Audio gold xlr to rca adaptors that I will be using for my left and right dedicated stereo outs of Oppo and I will use my only shorting ring that I have for my center. All the 3 channels will now be running rca via oppo .. I am hoping there will be no noise we shall see .. Thank you!! I cant remember how this shorting ring goes .. I will do a quick google check |
scotttexeira, For your guidance, my Levinson no.334 is fully balanced, as I’m sure your amps is as well. My manual states that: "...SINGLE-ENDED INPUTS These RCA connectors accept single-ended inputs from preamplifiers with single-ended (RCA) outputs. Single-ended input signals are converted to balanced signals immediately upon being received at the amplifier, and are handled as balanced signals thereafter..." "Be sure to utilize ths ML shorting pins". You may utilize a high quality single ended interconnect and retain the high quality playback from your Oppo, or any other single ended device. Best of luck. N |
No luck .. there was not much tension on the interconnects anyways .. I did just sprayed contact cleaner on to the oppo balanced males as well as the female ends of the interconnects .. see what this does .. Next I will be taking the oppo out of the system and opening her up .. maybe lightly vacuum and contact clean some areas .. |
Hi RSV4 Its not my Focals , I already changed them out .. but not sure if I did in fact try swapping channels .. good idea I will I just did change the inputs and now I am getting more sizzle on the left channel but oddly there seems to be a bit more sizzle on the other channel now as well .. I am running 1/2 meter balanced WireWorlds and I am going to try to raise my oppo player up more (my oppo is on the bottom shelf of my Mark Levinson) to take some of the tension off the interconnects .. I wonder if it is that simple? I will try this as welll |
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again .. its not the presentation of the oppo .. it needs repair ..
leaking just the slightest sizzle more prominent on the right side.
" Swap channels on your IC's just to be sure. Only do it on one end of the cables, not both. The problem should move to the other channel. Also, go over your speakers and make sure none of the screws are loose. Especially the ones holding the drivers in. Over time, they can work lose. If the Oppo is really broken, the price is very fair. Just have it fixed. |
Hi Spencer again .. its not the presentation of the oppo .. it needs repair .. leaking just the slightest sizzle more prominent on the right side. I certainly did all the recommendations and isolated it to the oppo player .. where exactly in the oppo I don’t know .. again possibly the board .. That is a good idea as far as trying to isolate the oppos analog board/outs but do not have access to a dac or not sure how I could otherwise .. |
Scott, FWIW, the outputs of the 105 aren't truly balanced. Going single ended shouldn't make a big difference. Did you try a different pair of XLR cables? It could be something as simple as a lose ground wire inside your cables. Did you try a different disk player in your system using your same cables to isolate to the Oppo? Even if you just borrow a dac to help in evaluation, feeding it from the Oppo's digital outs could isolate the Oppo analog board/outs as the source of the noise. Have you tried physically moving around your cables and messing with any cable intersections, power cables touching interconnects, cables looping, etc. that might be acting as antennae and picking up RFI? Lastly, if this issue "appeared one day" after having had the unit without trouble beforehand, it certainly sounds like something needing repair more so than you just not liking the presentation of the Oppo. Modding broken gear is worse than putting lipstick on a pig. IMHO, you need to find the root cause and eliminate the it. Cheers, Spencer |
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Hi Mechans Yes that's my best guess is the sound board of the Oppo. Its not that I don't like the quality of the treble .. its an issue of the sizzling tweeter Yes an interconnect change helped with the periodic sizzle only in that it was not as audible .. but that was going from the (balanced output dac of oppo with my Wireworld Gold Eclipse 7) to changing to the (rca outputs with my DHlabs silver sonic single endeds). I want to keep my wireworlds in order to utilize the better balanced dac of the oppo as well as utilizing the balanced circuitry of my Mark Levinson No. 433 Less revealing interconnects will probably make the sizzle inaudible but that's of course what we all don't want .. a less revealing system. |
Yes Thank you Tonykay ... I am thinking of doing this however I am looking at my options to where I ca have a few mods in the process .. maybe a mod on the board itself, power supply and the caps that Erik suggested at the same time. I rather not spend a lot of money on a full blown mod on the unit at this time. I am searching for the gentleman that does mods on the oppos and his name escapes me at the moment .. need more coffee or is it a senior moment? |
You asked for advice, so here it is. Pay the $119 for the new board. Oppo will test it before returning it to you. If the problem is not cured, that'll be one less thing you'll need to consider. As an alternative, do the things you suggested BEFORE you send it to Oppo. If you solve the problem, you're $119 ahead! I think you can trust Oppo not to hose you. Best of luck. |
Hi Erik, Thank you Maybe its time that I utilize a separate dac when I want to listen to my music and still use the Oppo for my surround as I am sure that I wont be losing much by going rca for the left and right channels when going surround. I use my oppo 50% tv movies and 50% 2 channel multi channel music. Instead of throwing money in to mods maybe I should just go with a new dac? I know there are a lot of wonderful options to be tried and had. Its just a faint high frequency light sizzling from the tweeter .. more so on the right channel and just audible enough to be a pain in da butt .. I also enjoy late night early morning low level listening as well and its irritating. Thank you for your input and help I will check out the link as I have read a lot about different mods but now I have to do something about it and hopefully I can fix it myself with some shielding .. |
Here is a good possibility, scroll down for the Oppo 105 mods. It seems they use electrolytic coupling caps (not good practice) so bypassing them is a great idea. http://audiophile-musings.blogspot.com/ |
You have just described that's why I don't like Oppo high end DAC's.... :) :) Are you hearing noise, or just a really hard/hot treble? if the former, you may have bad power supply issues. If the latter and on both sides, it's likely to be the characteristic of the output stage. If it's just one channel, then you may have a bad board. Best, Erik |
