oppo's volume control

I'm driving a Woo Audio WA6 headphone amp directly with the Oppo 103 with excellent results. Very immediate sounding and transparent.

I tried it on the BDP-105 and a Bryston 14BSST amp with poor results. I ended up with the Conrad Johnson Classic SE and was blown away with the warm result.

From just a couple of reviews of the Oppo going direct into poweramps and using it's own volume control, instead of having a preamp in the system

Excerpts from Hometheater
"Using the BDP-105 as a fully-functioning preamp by disconnecting my reference Parasound Halo JC2BP from the chain, I still got the same level of detail and precision as I repeated my battery of tests. In fact, there was an even greater sense of transparency and openness to the sound. Using the digital volume "knob" via the Oppo remote control was absolutely painless."

Excerpts from TNT Audio
"Things get really interesting when we dispose of the Django preamp altogether and simply plug the OPPO straight into my Unity Audio Rock active speakers. Now the sound really came alive, with even more drive and power than through the Django. Used like this, especially through the balanced connections, the sound is truly wonderful and probably the best digital replay I've had in my system. Going back to the Django, now sounds a little bit blurry, slightly constrained and somewhat less interesting."

As I said before, it's horses for courses. If you have a system that needs no tonal/colouration changes, then going direct will be the most transparent/dynamic way.

Cheers George

The clicks and popping only starting occurring after the Oppo was connected as preamp for about a week. Which reminds me, I started experiencing hiss as well. It's hard to say how long the above quoted reviewers had their Oppos set up in preamp operation, but the Oppo threads at AVS have repeated complaints of this.

It has been my experience that separate preamps typically have nothing to do with "tonal/colouration" changes in a system.

You have another problem Runnin if as it should not happen.

A reply email I recieved from the the head of technical department of Oppo USA regarding direct connection to poweramps.

"The BDP-103 players will lose bits if you lower the audio below 80.

The BDP-105 players will not lose resolution since they are 32-bit DACs. So they are the ideal solution if you want to go direct to an amplifier.

Best Regards,

Customer Service
OPPO Digital, Inc.
2629B Terminal Blvd.
Mountain View, CA 94043
Service@oppodigital.com
Tel: 650-961-1118
Fax: 650-961-1119"

Cheers George