compatibility issues with the oppo 95 and ext hd's

Can this be resolved with a firmware upgrade from Oppo? If so, then they should provide it, IMO. In the past, Oppo has been very responsive to compatibility issues.

I agree. They usually are very responsive. In this case they have been uncharacteristically defensive and said they do not know if they will be able to come up with a solution. They said they tested the unit before market with external hd's that you would get at staples. They never bothered with 'pro audio' hard drives. Very dissapointing.

How do they know that the player is incompatible with the latest Oxford chipset if they didn't test it?

Also, just to be sure something simple isn't being overlooked, have your drives been formatted with either FAT32 or NTFS (preferably NTFS, of course)? Looking at the manual for the player, it appears that Mac file systems are not supported.

Finally, it looks like the drives you are referring to probably provide both USB and eSATA interfaces. Have you tried both?

Regards,
-- Al

Very disappointing, indeed -- particularly if they are just going to shrug their shoulders and respond, "Oh, well... that's just how it is". How long is it going to take for someone with the resources to finally stop and think long enough to get this right? Let's see... I'm supposed to cough up $2500 to the Bryston network for ANOTHER semi-huge box, complete with sterile, uninspired, chunky vanity faceplate, etcetera, to... take a FILE and HAND IT OVER to the buffer reservoir of a DAC -- another semi-huge, semi-vulgar irrationality if it should be theirs? Not to mention more cables... And that's essentially IT? That's basically all it does? And oh yes, the display is so eye-wateringly miniaturized and the controller so off-putting that Bryston's OWN people "prefer" to WALK up to the device each time to survey their options and make a selection [Ref.: cover feature in the recent 'Stereophile']! Turntable and stacks of wax, anyone?

So that -- and this Oppo + your choice of fix-the-Apple-doesn't-give-a-s**t third party software -- are 2011's great audio "breakthroughs", you say (for those of us without $6500 DACs)? So where is the Volksplayer/Server the Oppo might have been? Let me add, as well, that there is serious doubt around some audiophile circles that hyped superchip DACs can play Redbook PCM at all well by high end standards. I know of three cases for sure where slick magazine-favorite-Ayre owners walked away from an encounter with upper mid-level 20- bit Audionote with a somewhat crestfallen look on their faces.

So here I am, anyway, with a universal player/transport for Blu-Ray music/SACD/"convenience"-impromptu CD... a DAC for hi-rez PCM (to be undumbed-down, i.e., modded)... and a DAC for 16-bit and compressed files [Internet radio] (to be rebuilt to higher specification mongrel Audionote)... and I think this isas things stand, a rational experiment! I believe I will be setting up a third turtable for mono and certain forms of vintage vinyl. Someone -- get me out of this (!): ANY music I might want to hear, played really, really well... and [way] under $7K on the digital side of things, PLEASE.

Please excuse my typos above: the go-back-to-edit operation here doesn't work with my Android Color Nook for some reason.

Thanks, Al, for the tips. I would certainly like to believe some clever folks will figure out work-arounds and, maybe, simple mods that might disinhibit the Oppo and make it more like the Volks-solution I have in mind. Personally, I'd like to see something from Oppo stripped back to transport/media player function, not unlike the BDP-83 offshoot they had out before. I remain skeptical about that ESS-based platform, however, mods or no mods. But I expect I could live with that, if just for
the SACD's.

It has been one slow evolution to get this far with hi-rez in the audiophile realm from SACD's and DVD-A's introduction, compared to the state of things in the pro, and even the pro-sumer market. 15-year-old kids with guitars and an interest in recording were basically beating the pants off audiophiles for years when it came to such things as lower jitter Firewire and Expresscard interfaces, and receiving asynchronous data streams.