Oppo BDP-105 Audiophile Universal Blu-ray Player

[admin]

The Oppo BDP-105 Universal Blu-ray player is truly an audiophile’s and videophile’s dream machine. From the BDP-105’s impeccable benchmark performance to its excellent build quality and usability, this player leaves you wanting nothing. The BDP-105 not only raises your expectations of what all Blu-ray players should be like, but it also elevates what you’d expect from a high end transport costing thousands more. If you are fully intent on building a two-channel and multi-channel system of equal measure, I simply can’t make a higher recommendation than this product. Until Oppo builds a real world Star Trek holodeck, you will be hard pressed to better your A/V experience with any other source device. Live long and prosper and long live Oppo!


Discuss " Oppo BDP-105 Audiophile Universal Blu-ray Player" here. Read the article.

[avliner]

Wow Gene,

another killer review man!

IIRC, it's the first time ever that an almost 100% 5-star score card shows up on AH reviews (except for the BM, which got 4-star, though).

[mlknez]

I liked the review, but you skipped a couple of very important points. You didn't talk about Oppo no longer supporting .iso file playback nor what it's local file streaming playback support is/is not. Many people now download high quality audio files and would like to play them back. DSD file playback is not supported on this device either anymore. You can no longer call this device a "universal" player in my book.

[j_garcia]

My guess would be that bass management issue could be corrected via firmware. Nice review and glad it does that well. I saw this thing in person when I was getting my 83SE serviced and it is a LOT bigger than all previous models and looks like a very nice unit for sure. It was already my plan to pick one up in a few months, but this certainly just cements that plan Were the previous models checked for this bass management "issue"?

I am going to have to send Oppo an email because I noticed that it didn't seem to make any difference between the DSD and PCM setting on my 83SE; it always shows PCM. Not sure if that is just a problem with it reporting PCM all the time or if it actually does not change based on the setting. I am also going to say that we've had that PCM vs DSD discussion a few times here and my opinion is that I am not even sure the difference is readily audible.

[gene]

My guess would be that bass management issue could be corrected via firmware. Nice review and glad it does that well. I saw this thing in person when I was getting my 83SE serviced and it is a LOT bigger than all previous models and looks like a very nice unit for sure. It was already my plan to pick one up in a few months, but this certainly just cements that plan Were the previous models checked for this bass management "issue"?

I am going to have to send Oppo an email because I noticed that it didn't seem to make any difference between the DSD and PCM setting on my 83SE; it always shows PCM. Not sure if that is just a problem with it reporting PCM all the time or if it actually does not change based on the setting. I am also going to say that we've had that PCM vs DSD discussion a few times here and my opinion is that I am not even sure the difference is readily audible.

Every Oppo I've bench tested, I checked the bass management and reported on it in the associated reviews. All of them operated pretty similarly though the slopes were a tad shallow on the BDP-105.

[gene]

I liked the review, but you skipped a couple of very important points. You didn't talk about Oppo no longer supporting .iso file playback nor what it's local file streaming playback support is/is not. Many people now download high quality audio files and would like to play them back. DSD file playback is not supported on this device either anymore. You can no longer call this device a "universal" player in my book.

Per Oppo:

ISO playback was briefly available in the BDP-93/95 players although we never announced it nor officially supported it. However the studios requested through various channels that we remove ISO playback due to the concerns of playing backup movie discs. In a firmware release note dated March 6, 2012 we told the customers about it: “Per request from the studios, the ISO file playback function has been removed in this firmware version. The previous firmware had the ability to play ISO files, but it was an undocumented function and was never officially announced or supported. Future firmware revisions will no longer support ISO playback.” Being a licensed manufacturer we run into this kind of limitations. The BDP-103/105 never supported ISO playback so I don’t think it is relevant to the review.

The player can already support WAV and FLAC files up to 192kHz/24-bit and up to 5.1ch. These files can be played directly from an attached USB drive or an optical disc. With proper streaming software or local network share via SMB/CIFS, these files can also be supported over the home network.

DSD file playback has not been supported in any of our players so we cannot remove something that was not there. On the other hand, we are actively working on DSD file support and hope to have the BDP-103/105 support DSD files in the near future.

[PENG]

It was tough to give up my virtually new 95 that has the stacked DAC feature but I couldn't justify keeping both. In terms of sound quality I initially thought it sounded a little more transparent, but after having more time listening to it and my old Denon, I no longer think it sound any better despite the lower distortion measured in this review. To me the main advantages of the 105 are:

Fanless quiet, apparently better built, much more responsive remote (The 95's borderline on not acceptable). and Netflix 5.1 DD+. Of course it has a few more features such as 4K upscaling and USB Asynchronous, but I can't take advantage of those, not yet anyway.

[dmusoke]

Gene .... Thanks for the great review:

But why did you skip reviewing the headphone amplifier? I'm most interested in this portion of the player. Also the USB DAC?

Thanks,
David

[mdanderson]

Thanks for the great review Gene. I plan on ordering the Oppo 105 in the next week or so. I did not know that bass management is not applied when using the xlr balanced 2 channel outs on the 105. My Paradigm Ref. 20 speakers are not full range so I guess I can't really use the xlr outputs but I assume bass mgmt is applied to the dedicated 2channel unbalanced rca outs. Thanks again.

[gene]

Gene .... Thanks for the great review:

But why did you skip reviewing the headphone amplifier? I'm most interested in this portion of the player. Also the USB DAC?

Thanks,
David

I did discuss the USB DAC. As for the headphone amp,, I just got tired of writing I will add in a followup about that soon.