Oppo BDP-93 Universal 3D Blu-ray Player Full Review

[haraldo]

It is not on the same planet as squeezebox. Stick with that.

it's what I was afraid of.....

 

[detroit1]

I'm sure the Oppo 95 is great but has there been any direct comparison with the Cambridge Audio 751 ? which is an oppo with some slight changes
I think the Cambridge costs a little more

 

[MidnightSensi2]

Two questions!

I may have missed it in the review, but how is the speed? Does it load the blu-ray's pretty quick? My 'reference' Denon is terrible so I use the PS3 haha.

For remote integration are the codes available? I.e. integration with Crestron, AMX, and universal remotes?

 

[haraldo]

There is one thing I just don't understand....
In all reviews of the Oppo's around here they are being praised as the holy grail of universal machines that can play anything in the universe and that doesn't lack anything and which is impossible to improve in any way whatsoever....

On the other side there are forum members here that state that the Oppo's and Dune's are not at all usable as streaming players for music (2 channel), as they have no player functions that are even in the same universe as what a simple squeezebox may provide.

From my point of view, I would like a player that plays everything with an ease that is second to none. When I read the AH reviews you may be led into believing that these players may provide these things, but according to forum members NOT...

So is the AH reviewers running away from their responsibility of disclosing all the facts of a player or are you just not interested in these things at all... When I read a review I would like all things to be disclosed, are you not up to this task when it comes to these players?

If you were actually doing these things too.... you could be a force that in the end pushes the manufacturers to greatly improve players in this respect too, which is what this site is about

Gene, Clint, Tom.... plz look into this too

 

[sholling]

There is one thing I just don't understand....
In all reviews of the Oppo's around here they are being praised as the holy grail of universal machines that can play anything in the universe and that doesn't lack anything and which is impossible to improve in any way whatsoever....

It's not something I'd run out and buy again simply because my old PS3 is a very competent Blu-Ray player with good upscaling and can play SACDs, and there are now other solutions for DVD-A playback.

On the other side there are forum members here that state that the Oppo's and Dune's are not at all usable as streaming players for music (2 channel), as they have no player functions that are even in the same universe as what a simple squeezebox may provide.

It's true that I find its network media player functions to be below that of some the very latest and greatest streaming media players. Per Oppo support video playback limitations and lack of support for network shares are not their fault, they say it's a limitation imposed by the chipset maker. But to be fair until the last couple of months you needed a fairly advanced HTPC to top the Oppo BDP-93's network media player capabilities and IMO you still won't find perfection in any single box - or at least I haven't found that box yet. Perhaps next year there will be a new killer device.

In defense of the "universal machine" claim it does support the rare combination of BD, plus very good upscaling of DVD, plus SACD and DVD-A. And it will play 24bit/96khz FLACs and multichannel FLACs from an external hard drive or DLNA server but not network shares. I found the admittedly experimental media player functions to be at the level of an advanced beta but they don't seem to be getting the updates/improvements that I expect for a premium priced product. For example so far no update to the 1080P version of Netflix. To be fair to the reviewer the functions of the player were very advanced (for example at least some support for 24bit and multichannel FLACs) at the time of the review but have since gotten a bit long in the tooth as technology has advanced and (other than no 1080P Netflix) still exceed those of most Blu-Ray players. Yes there are specialized products that are better or at least more flexible at playing back networked and Internet media but that superiority is quite new. I'll add that to this day few specialized players match, let alone exceed, the Oppo's ability to play 24bit/96khz and multichannel FLACs. I didn't add a Roku 2 XS and a NeoTV550 (2-box network player solution) to my systems until the last 2 months or so because the technology wasn't ready.

On the other hand I think Oppo would be very foolish to base their next $500 product on a function limited chipset or fail to deliver full featured state of the art media player functions complete with regular stability and functionality updates. Until then I think that a full featured HTPC or the combination of a BD player, Roku like internet media player and NeoTV550 like network media player are the most flexible if not quite perfect either solutions.

 

[haraldo]

Primare BD32 universal player is also based on the Oppo BDP-93, it's not a rebadging, they seem to have done a lot of improvements to audio circuitry....

Primare : BD32 universal player

 

[haraldo]

There's also
a) NuForce (Oppo) BDP-93 Edition
b) NuForce (Oppo) BDP-93 Xtreme Edition
NuForce BDP-93 Edition, BDP-93 Xtreme Edition and BDP-95 Edition

 

[psbfan9]

Primare BD32 universal player is also based on the Oppo BDP-93, it's not a rebadging, they seem to have done a lot of improvements to audio circuitry....

Primare : BD32 universal player

This looks like a fine player. The several thousand dollars in price difference seems to favor the Oppo. I have no experience with either product, but for me, cost is definitely an issue.

Primare: $3000-4000 (Euros). Over $5000.00 U.S.

Oppo: $499.00 U.S.

From an article on What HiFi.com

Published 28/06/11:

Due on sale in the UK 'late summer', Primare's BD32 high-end Blu-ray player (top) is on show here for the first time.

It's a universal model, playing BD, CD, SACD and DVD-Audio discs. The player is 3D compatible, has stereo balanced outputs, coaxial and optical outs, dual HDMI, an OLED display and streaming capability.

A UK price is still to be confirmed, but it's likely to be somehere between £3000-£4000 we're told.

 

[haraldo]

This looks like a fine player. The several thousand dollars in price difference seems to favor the Oppo. I have no experience with either product, but for me, cost is definitely an issue.

Primare: $3000-4000 (Euros). Over $5000.00 U.S.

Oppo: $499.00 U.S.

From an article on What HiFi.com

Published 28/06/11:

Due on sale in the UK 'late summer', Primare's BD32 high-end Blu-ray player (top) is on show here for the first time.

It's a universal model, playing BD, CD, SACD and DVD-Audio discs. The player is 3D compatible, has stereo balanced outputs, coaxial and optical outs, dual HDMI, an OLED display and streaming capability.

A UK price is still to be confirmed, but it's likely to be somehere between £3000-£4000 we're told.

I agree it's quite a big difference in pricetag, but from what I understand they replaced all audio stages, and from my previous experience with primare, I have never seen them as really overpriced products... expensive yes, but you probably get what you pay for...

I do have a Primare R32 phono amp that I'm very happy with.... well pricetag is much much lower.

 

[PENG]

If the 93 caught fire you only have to spend $500 to replace it. I would not spend thousands just to get a closer to perfect one box solution that is always going to be a compromise and it is an expensive example of all eggs in one basket. I think the 93 comes close (better than the 95 in that regard but the latest Sonys that plays SACDs are much cheaper) to being affordable enough for somone who need a better and separate network/media box to just go buy one and be still ahead in his/her bank account. Your points seem factually correct though.

 

[cpp]

Oppo 93 , going back for repair Monday. The transport stuck closed. and it has my wife's favorite CD inside

 

[STRONGBADF1]

Oppo 93 , going back for repair Monday. The transport stuck closed. and it has my wife's favorite CD inside

At least it wasn't one of your CD's.

Here's to a quick and easy turn around!

 

[haraldo]

If the 93 caught fire you only have to spend $500 to replace it.

We should never get any nice things, like nice jewelry... or a nice car... what if it gets stolen

 

[cpp]

We should never get any nice things, like nice jewelry... or a nice car... what if it gets stolen

the secret is having a insurance rider attached to your Basic Homeowners policy to cover those expensive pieces of jewelry, audio equipment, art. Your basic home owners policy may not cover your audio equipment in the event of a fire or theft. example; A rider extending coverage for audio to $10,000 would cost about $100 a year.

If you don't have additional coverage on your "fine things around the house" your screwed if something unforeseen occurs.

 

[PENG]

We should never get any nice things, like nice jewelry... or a nice car... what if it gets stolen

I didn't mean that and did not say that, sorry if I confuse you. I would get the nice things too but prefer not to have them all in one basket. Okay my example, fire, was an exaggerrated one to make a point. Say the transport is stuck, as it occurred to cpp, now you can't play your favorite DVDA/SACD. So I prefer to have an relatively affordable universal like the 93 but have a separate one for HD media such as SACD, Flac, wave streamer. That way I can use the more affordable one to play all sorts of video disc and even CDs, saving a better quality one for the HD disc/Flac/Wave etc. As they say, YMMV. Hope I make my point clearer this time.

PS I do have the 95, a $500 mistake for me, should have got the 93 instead.

 

[haraldo]

I didn't mean that and did not say that, sorry if I confuse you. I would get the nice things too but prefer not to have them all in one basket. Okay my example, fire, was an exaggerrated one to make a point. Say the transport is stuck, as it occurred to cpp, now you can't play your favorite DVDA/SACD. So I prefer to have an relatively affordable universal like the 93 but have a separate one for HD media such as SACD, Flac, wave streamer. That way I can use the more affordable one to play all sorts of video disc and even CDs, saving a better quality one for the HD disc/Flac/Wave etc. As they say, YMMV. Hope I make my point clearer this time.

PS I do have the 95, a $500 mistake for me, should have got the 93 instead.

I'm exercising on my sarcasm, seems like I'm improving...

Probably I agree with you after all.... I would not buy the Primare because I don't want to put money into an expensive audio stage at that place but rather use an outboard dac or a true digital amp and then this audio stage is just sitting there idle anyways, so it's like throwing money out the window.... The most extreme example would be the Linn Klimax DS which is Linn's top of the range media player and it doesn't have a digital out, only analogue out.... so what do you do if you want a digital electronic crossover...? why don't they provide these players without analogue stages too....

Yes I agree with you too about not putting all your eggs in one basket, probably why people will have Oppo's and separate media players and even a dedicated CD player, ref another thread around here about the Marantz CD 6004

I was looking for the "do it all player" but it just doesn't exist

The Oppo's are probably after all quite good compromises because you don't put so much into the analogue stages if you don't use them but then again you don't wanna use an Oppo as a music player, so why do you need the Oppo then? P.t. I use my PC to play all videos in lieu of something better (it's got Intel Core i7 and 4GB memory and an ATI Radeon HD 4670 so it processes this fine enough for me)

 

[cpp]

Oppo 93 , going back for repair Monday.

New unit received yesterday. Man that's great customer service.

 

[Adam]

New unit received yesterday. Man that's great customer service.

Did they also send your wife's favorite CD back?

 

[Wayde Robson]

My Oppo BD 93 arrived for the weekend and it got plenty of use.

I did some side-by-side with the LotR Blu-ray between the Oppo and my previous BD player, the PS3.

The Oppo provides visual enhancements, not significant but it’s noticeable. The enhancement is mainly in the wide landscape scenes where fine details such as ‘human’ (or Orc) figures are moving, mixed with ‘blacks’ it gets muddy on the PS3 where the Oppo is able to keep it together.

Audio-wise very similar results, definitely there but not huge.

The main advantage I’m getting with the Oppo for audio, I guess, is that I’m bitstreaming to my Marantz 8002 receiver which then decodes the audio. The PS3 is incapable of this and uses its own DACs to decode and send multi-channel PCM to the receiver.

I expect that my Marantz has slightly better DACs than the PS3. Although I don’t know for sure if there’s any audible gains in decoding inside the receiver vs inherent loss when decoding at the playback device and having audio sent as multi-channel PCM to the receiver.

Nine Inch Nails – Beside You

Okay, confession time. I’m one of those freaks who listens to Nine Inch Nails and I couldn’t wait to test out my Beside You concert Blu-ray, very loudly to get a feel for the bottom-end of things. I noticed the video froze intermittently throughout the performance, I restarted, and even tested it in my PS3 which has never done this.

It turns out this disc is a known problem for the Oppo. I’m not sure why but apparently this new firmware beta fixes it.

OPPO BDP-93 Blu-ray Disc Player
just ctl-F "nine inch" on this document, it's itemized as one of this FW updates many improvements.

I got the latest FW when I setup, but I guess this means I need to take a chance on a beta FW upgrade?? Has anyone had experience with this? I don’t know if I should do it or just wait for a regular update.

My Oppo is hard wired to the Internet full-time so I have no problem getting the update when it comes over naturally. I can live with the intermittent frozen screens now and then. It doesn’t affect the audio and that’s the only reason I’m listening to the disc.

 

[PENG]

I got the latest FW when I setup, but I guess this means I need to take a chance on a beta FW upgrade?? Has anyone had experience with this? I don’t know if I should do it or just wait for a regular update.

Not much of a chance to take because the Betas have been good in the past. This update also removes the ability to play ISO files so just be aware. I think many people will not update as they want to keep the ISO feature. I would think that most Oppo owners have more than one BDP so if the Oppo won't play a disc or two it really isn't a huge problem.