oppo's volume control

The odd noises were with the Oppo 103, not 105 or 95. I'm not sure if you looked up the noises owners of the 103 have been having when the 103 is connected directly to amp, but several owners have gotten the same result as they try to use their Oppo 103 as a preamp. Oppo themselves say not to connect some of their players like this, and I think they may know something.

As I've repeated, I did not have any such noises with the Oppo 95 as preamp. It was without issue. But the sound when a preamp(parasound P7) is in the chain is superior. More holographic, better imaging and more realistic. The Oppo direct sounds clinical by comparison.

Perhaps you prefer a clinical or analytical sound, George, and that would be fine. But I think the jury is out on which alternative is superior. Just because one of us likes one option over the other, it doesn't make either one of us wrong. Your speakers and mine may have vary different characteristics. Your hearing talent/skill may be different than mine. I don't think there is a one-size-fits-all solution here.

Like I said in the post above about yours Runnin, there is a problem with your Oppo they/it should not do this, it is a design fault or component acting up, adding a preamp that has no doubt some coupling capacitor/s in the signal path is stopping any of these noises from getting through. As the specs of your preamp show 5hz not DC to 100khz. (which means it's not direct coupled)
If you were to put a direct coupled (DC-100khz) preamp in it will no doubt then pass these noises through again.
The noises should not be there to start with, as these type of noise can saturate active components within the preamp and or even the poweramp if let through.

As for your preference for the sound with the preamp in, I take your point that you prefer the colourations that your preamp adds to your system, and that going direct without these colourations is not pleasing to you.
The so called "perfect preamp" that sounds like "straight wire with gain" will most likly not meet your expectations either, just as going direct doesn't.

Cheers George

Again George, OPPO says not to use the 103 without a preamp, I suggest you phone them directly and they will set you straight. Here's part of an email a reader shared in which Oppo tells him to use a preamp.

Erin,

If you will be using the player as the pre-amplifier, then you will want to use the BDP-105. The BDP-103 has 24-bit DACs and has a low signal to noise floor, so it will likely produce audio truncations if you use the player's built-in volume controls and a hum will always be present as the amplifier will always be amplifying the noise floor.

If you are running through a pre-amplifier, or another device which will be doing the volume controls, then the BDP-103 will work in your configuration.

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

It's kind of funny how you insist that preamps add "colouration" when such a blanket statement is obviously off base. I will leave you to your notions, I don't think I can help you further, it appears that your preferences are quirky.

Cheers,
Runnin'

If you looked 7 post up I don't have to phone them, I got the answer for you already from the head of technical at Oppo above.
Oppo's email to me, the reason is because of "bit striping" at volumes below 80, that's why it's not recommended, not because it makes noises when it's played direct to poweramps.
Any tech will tell you that noises such as you explained you are getting are not conducive to a cdp that's in healthy condition.
The only reason your Parasound P7 pre is not passing it through is because it's a capacitor coupled preamp, and capacitors block dc spikes.
As I said if you were to use a dc coupled preamp such as Pass Labs, Krell ect, you will find the noises are back again, just like they are when you go direct to the poweramp.

Cheers George

Oh, I see you are making more assumptions on my gear. Read this carefully, I get no noises on my Oppo 103 now. That's right, it's all good, I only had the issue after running it after a week using the analog jacks, but it hasn't been hooked up that way for 6 months or so. I use it for movies, Roku and streaming music to occasionally and it's flawless in all situations. It really made me an Oppo fan for life after the stellar performance of the 95 I have in the 2 channel system with the P7.

I'm not sure what you are on about regarding the P7, a well known characteristic about Parasound products is that there are no caps in the signal path but since you wrongly guessed that the Oppo's had analog volumes in your first post, and also thought Oppo output impedance is under 200 ohms(way off according to my Oppo 95 manual), I submit to you that you might want to ensure you get your facts and details sorted before posting.