Hope I bought the right thing here [Oppo]

Mellotronix

Super Member
I just ordered one of these new Oppo UDP 203 Blu Ray players. I think it replaced the venerable 103 adding support for 4K UHD blu ray discs.

oppo1.jpg

When I refurbished my mixing/mastering studio, I originally ordered a Yamaha BD A1060 universal player, but I have since added a Sony 4K TV to the space, thus the Oppo. It's gonna have to work hard to beat the Yamaha for sound, but I'm certain that it's up to the task except for the fact that the Yamaha has an HDCD decoder and the Oppo does not. That's the way it alway is, no? You find something that's nearly perfect except for one little niggle.

Anyway, on a side note, I tried the Yamaha in my home theater over the weekend. We watched the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition on Blu Ray on my Panasonic Viera Plasma TV [circa 2012]. Holy shit. What an experience. Image quality, audio quality, it's truly breathtaking. My son has a new $4500 Sony 65" 4K and we watched a the new King Kong in 4K Blu Ray a week ago. I like my plasma better. Honestly, there's something about plasma that works for me. OLED is the only thing I've seen that might offer an improvement.

Anyway, too much information. Sorry. Here's the Yamaha that is now permanently installed in my home theater room. I hope I did not make a mistake by not waiting for Yamaha to release a 4K version of the A1060.

yamaha.jpg
 
As long as you don't plan on using it as a CD player while using the analog outputs you should be fine. I have encountered audio drop outs while playing CDs.The OPPO UDP-203 is hooked up as follows, HDMI out to TV (Sony Bravia XBR 4K) and analog LR out to receiver (Yamaha R-S700). According to OPPO techs the drop outs are due to HDMI "handshakes" because the TV has "hot" HDMI ports. I tried all of their suggestions to no avail, I have to either turn on the TV, unplug the HDMI or buy a receiver with HDMI connections to avoid the drop outs! This should not be an issue. I don't recall this happening with my Denon 2910. I wonder if anyone else out there has had this problem and could recommend a solution. I would appreciate it very much.
I may be wrong but I would think that there are more than a few people out there still actively use receivers and amps without HDMI outputs. A lot of the AudioKarma people are totally pleased with their vintage equipment.
Perhaps I should have spent my money on a quality CD player and a 99 dollar blu ray player. I wish I had known this when I was shopping for a universal disc player.
As a video unit I'm sure its OK but as a CD player it is a bust to fan of vintage equipment!
 
Yes.

Story I heard was that the chips weren't made anymore, although I can't find a reference for that
 
Pacific Microsonics originally designed and manufactured the HDCD bits & pieces.
Around 2000 or so Pacific Microsonics went belly-up and were bought out by Microsoft.
Around 2005 or so Microsoft began losing interest in HDCD,since then it has been left to die a long/slow death.

Originally the HDCD Decoding was done by the PMD-100 & PMD-200 "chips" in CDPs & DACs.
Later on Burr Brown & Sanyo were licensed by Pacific Microsonics to make DACs that had HDCD decoding.
Those were often found in both CD players & DVD players during that time period.
Later Motorola and a few other did so as well,mostly used in DVD players by that point.

SACD has pretty much killed off HDCD at this point,the writing is on the wall.

Me,I'm a redbook kinda guy,so none of that really concerns me much,LOL.
I mostly only researched that deal as the PMD-100/200 are often found in older DACs.

HTH

Bret P.
 
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