Oppo DV980H Audio Quality

Happybob, my take from the Stereophile review is a bit different. As I recall the Stereophile review suggested that the earler Oppo worked best as a transport, and that full resolution from HiRez audio formats were compromised, not being much better than Red Book CD. My take was that Stereophile liked the Oppo DV 970 HD as a CD transport.

Hifidreams, I thought Blueray players only played DVD's. How were you able to compare the audio?

Unsound, I should clarify myself. Oppo is a decent performer with SACD or DVD-Audio when used as a transport to output 16-bit/96khz digitally through coax connection to good DAC. Oppo players will not output DSD from the SACD, but it will convert the DSD to 96khz LPCM first before sending the digital signal through coax to the DAC. This only works on 2 channel SACD and DVD-Audio of course. With multi-channel SACD, you do have to rely on the multi-channel analog output of the Oppo, or use hdmi. But so far, you won't find too many high-end amps/pre-amps that will take HDMI. You are pretty much limited to those consumer grade Denon, Yamaha, Marantz receivers. Some nicer sounding receivers such as the Arcam ones do offer HDMI, but unfortunately only for video purpose.

Happybob... so are you saying that you can play SACD or DVD-Audio using the Oppo as solely a transport into an external DAC? Did I read that right?

If so, I'm curious about how the SACD 2 channel DSD to LPCM converted digital out stacks up... Have you compared it to redbook output of the same recording? (just using the Oppo as a transport in both cases)?

Mdconnelly, yes, that's what I'm saying. Oppo will convert DSD to LPCM first, at least that's what I gathered from the Stereophile review and other online posts. It's this capability to output 96khz LPCM that had stereophile raved about it. Unfortunately I haven't tried it myself since I don't own any SACD. But I'm about to go and pick one up and try it myself. I'll let you know once I confirm the finding.