oppo's volume control

@Georgelofi: Fighting a losing battle. It's OK to be wrong.

05-14-14: Doak
@Georgelofi: Fighting a losing battle. It's OK to be wrong.

Not at all Doak, it's ok if some can't see the forest for the trees. Direct is the best transparency possible, runnin obviously has problems coming out of his source doing this, if he has odd noises this way.
They sound like they could be faulty dac glitches or dc offset pops from the buffers, whatever it is, it's not right to make noises like this, and a capacitor coupled preamp is hiding it for him, by not letting it through, but it still should not be there in the first place.
It could be a problem with his own Oppo, or that model was not sorted properly in it's design, as a normal amps input impedance + interconnects will not load it any better or worse than a preamp with the same interconnects will.

Cheers George

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'