Oppo BDP-105 vs. SONY SCD-XA5400ES

[s***@yahoo.com.au]

Is there any point of getting the SONY SACD SCD-XA5400ES player if I already have the best current Oppo available? Does the SONY SCD-XA5400ES player still offer any advantage for CD and SACD playing?

Thanks,

Simonel

[Tater]

Post by s***@yahoo.com.au
Is there any point of getting the SONY SACD SCD-XA5400ES player if I already have the best current Oppo available? Does the SONY SCD-XA5400ES player still offer any advantage for CD and SACD playing?
Thanks,
Simonel

Or you could upgrade the BDP-105:

http://www.modwright.com/modifications/oppo-bdp83-and-bdp83se-mod.php

[Andrew Haley]

Post by Tater

Post by s***@yahoo.com.au
Is there any point of getting the SONY SACD SCD-XA5400ES player if I
already have the best current Oppo available? Does the SONY
SCD-XA5400ES player still offer any advantage for CD and SACD
playing?

http://www.modwright.com/modifications/oppo-bdp83-and-bdp83se-mod.php

Hold on, you've got one of the best-performing players ever made, with
the remarkable SaberDAC, and someone puts *tubes* into the signal
path. How is that not like hitching your Lamborghini to a carthorse?
Madness!

Andrew.

[Audio_Empire]

Post by Tater

Post by s***@yahoo.com.au
Is there any point of getting the SONY SACD SCD-XA5400ES player if I already
have the best current Oppo available? Does the SONY SCD-XA5400ES player
still offer any advantage for CD and SACD playing?
Thanks,
Simonel

http://www.modwright.com/modifications/oppo-bdp83-and-bdp83se-mod.php

This is all fine and good, and perhaps you can even hear "some*"
difference, but it still doesn't alter the fact that the Oppo in
question still uses the same SabreDac 32 which converts DSD to LPCM
before playing it, It you want the best SACD playback, one of the
purpose-built ES series Sony players is likely going to do a better job
than any player which converts DSD before playing it.

*As to whether or not this difference is better or worse than the stock
Oppo BDP-105 player depends upon one's taste in playback. There are a
number of mods being done to the Oppos and I've heard a few (not this
one though) and even though I've never compared a modded Oppo to the
same model, stock, I have compared them directly with my XA777ES and
they always come off sounding second best - not by much, you understand,
but enough that I would NEVER consider trading my Sony for one.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ***@netfront.net ---

[Andrew Haley]

Post by Audio_Empire
This is all fine and good, and perhaps you can even hear "some*"
difference, but it still doesn't alter the fact that the Oppo in
question still uses the same SabreDac 32 which converts DSD to LPCM
before playing it,

I don't think so: according to their white paper, they feed the DSD
data into their anti-imaging filter, which runs at a very high
frequency. There's no suggestion that they downsample it to LPCM
first; or do you have some other information?

Why would downsampling to LPCM do any harm, anyway? All the damage
has been done already during the DSD encoding.

Andrew.

[Bob Lombard]

Post by Andrew Haley

Post by Audio_Empire
This is all fine and good, and perhaps you can even hear "some*"
difference, but it still doesn't alter the fact that the Oppo in
question still uses the same SabreDac 32 which converts DSD to LPCM
before playing it,

I don't think so: according to their white paper, they feed the DSD
data into their anti-imaging filter, which runs at a very high
frequency. There's no suggestion that they downsample it to LPCM
first; or do you have some other information?
Why would downsampling to LPCM do any harm, anyway? All the damage
has been done already during the DSD encoding.
Andrew.

Hah. In either case there appears to be some god-like hearing
involved. Personally I wouldn't buy a Sony CD/DVD player anyway, but
that has to do with their fussiness about CD-Rs and DVD-Rs; something
fishy going on there.

bl

[Audio_Empire]

Post by Bob Lombard

Post by Andrew Haley

Post by Audio_Empire
This is all fine and good, and perhaps you can even hear "some*"
difference, but it still doesn't alter the fact that the Oppo in
question still uses the same SabreDac 32 which converts DSD to LPCM
before playing it,

I don't think so: according to their white paper, they feed the DSD
data into their anti-imaging filter, which runs at a very high
frequency. There's no suggestion that they downsample it to LPCM
first; or do you have some other information?
Why would downsampling to LPCM do any harm, anyway? All the damage
has been done already during the DSD encoding.
Andrew.

Hah. In either case there appears to be some god-like hearing
involved.

Nah, just some critical, informed listening.

Post by Bob Lombard
Personally I wouldn't buy a Sony CD/DVD player anyway, but
that has to do with their fussiness about CD-Rs and DVD-Rs; something
fishy going on there.

I've never owned a Sony CD/DVD player, so I can't comment on that.

Post by Bob Lombard
bl

[Audio_Empire]

Post by Andrew Haley

Post by Audio_Empire
This is all fine and good, and perhaps you can even hear "some*"
difference, but it still doesn't alter the fact that the Oppo in
question still uses the same SabreDac 32 which converts DSD to LPCM
before playing it,

I don't think so: according to their white paper, they feed the DSD
data into their anti-imaging filter, which runs at a very high
frequency. There's no suggestion that they downsample it to LPCM
first; or do you have some other information?

They use the SabreDAC 32. It converts DSD to LPCM. My information comes
from the Oppo Technical guy.

Post by Andrew Haley
Why would downsampling to LPCM do any harm, anyway? All the damage
has been done already during the DSD encoding.

Damage? What damage?

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ***@netfront.net ---

[Andrew Haley]

Post by Audio_Empire

Post by Andrew Haley

Post by Audio_Empire
This is all fine and good, and perhaps you can even hear "some*"
difference, but it still doesn't alter the fact that the Oppo in
question still uses the same SabreDac 32 which converts DSD to LPCM
before playing it,

I don't think so: according to their white paper, they feed the DSD
data into their anti-imaging filter, which runs at a very high
frequency. There's no suggestion that they downsample it to LPCM
first; or do you have some other information?

They use the SabreDAC 32. It converts DSD to LPCM. My information comes
from the Oppo Technical guy.

Hmm. Must be true, then. Under the circumstances, I think I'll go by
the ESS white paper. But even if it does, there's no reason to
suspect that doing so will cause any audible damage.

Post by Audio_Empire

Post by Andrew Haley
Why would downsampling to LPCM do any harm, anyway? All the damage
has been done already during the DSD encoding.

Damage? What damage?

Single-bit sigma-delta converters are inherently unstable.

Whether it's during analogue to digital conversion or shortening the
wordlength from PCM, you must add dither to linearize the process.
The problem with single-bit sigma-delta (aka DSD) is that it is
impossible to add enough dither without overloading the modulator.
(There wouldn't have been any problem if the designers of DSD had used
two-bit sigma-delta instead of one-bit.) DSD-wide (i.e. 8-bit
sigma-delta) solves the problem, but you still have to go down from
wide to 1-bit to maks a SACD, and the problem recurs. This was proven
by Vanderkooy and Lipshitz in their clasic paper. [1]

There was a rather feeble reply from Philips, but no attempt to rebut
Vanderkooy and Lipshitz's proof. And it is a real mathematical proof,
the most reliable indication of truth there is.

These days, the highest-quality audio converters use multi-bit
sigma-delta modulators. (The one in the Sabre DAC is probably six
bits wide, although the white paper is rather vague about that.)

For these reasons, I suspect that if you want to convert DSD to
analogue (and remove high-frequency spuriae) there isn't any better
way to do it. As usual, I'm happy to be proved wrong by some real
evdence.

Andrew.


[1] http://sjeng.org/ftp/SACD.pdf

[Audio_Empire]

Post by Andrew Haley

Post by Audio_Empire

Post by Andrew Haley

Post by Audio_Empire
This is all fine and good, and perhaps you can even hear "some*"
difference, but it still doesn't alter the fact that the Oppo in
question still uses the same SabreDac 32 which converts DSD to LPCM
before playing it,

I don't think so: according to their white paper, they feed the DSD
data into their anti-imaging filter, which runs at a very high
frequency. There's no suggestion that they downsample it to LPCM
first; or do you have some other information?

They use the SabreDAC 32. It converts DSD to LPCM. My information comes
from the Oppo Technical guy.

Hmm. Must be true, then. Under the circumstances, I think I'll go by
the ESS white paper. But even if it does, there's no reason to
suspect that doing so will cause any audible damage.

Post by Audio_Empire

Post by Andrew Haley
Why would downsampling to LPCM do any harm, anyway? All the damage
has been done already during the DSD encoding.

Damage? What damage?

Single-bit sigma-delta converters are inherently unstable.
Whether it's during analogue to digital conversion or shortening the
wordlength from PCM, you must add dither to linearize the process.
The problem with single-bit sigma-delta (aka DSD) is that it is
impossible to add enough dither without overloading the modulator.
(There wouldn't have been any problem if the designers of DSD had used
two-bit sigma-delta instead of one-bit.) DSD-wide (i.e. 8-bit
sigma-delta) solves the problem, but you still have to go down from
wide to 1-bit to maks a SACD, and the problem recurs. This was proven
by Vanderkooy and Lipshitz in their clasic paper. [1]
There was a rather feeble reply from Philips, but no attempt to rebut
Vanderkooy and Lipshitz's proof. And it is a real mathematical proof,
the most reliable indication of truth there is.
These days, the highest-quality audio converters use multi-bit
sigma-delta modulators. (The one in the Sabre DAC is probably six
bits wide, although the white paper is rather vague about that.)
For these reasons, I suspect that if you want to convert DSD to
analogue (and remove high-frequency spuriae) there isn't any better
way to do it. As usual, I'm happy to be proved wrong by some real
evdence.

Thanks for the clarification. I'm going to have to run over to Oppo US
headquarters and talk with their technical guy again (they're about a
mile from here). What you say makes sense and the white paper
certainly points at what you say being correct.


On the other hand, it still doesn't alter the fact that my Sony XA777ES
player provides the best sounding SACD and Red Book playback I've
ever heard.

[Andrew Haley]

Post by Audio_Empire

Post by Andrew Haley

Post by Audio_Empire

Post by Andrew Haley

Post by Audio_Empire
This is all fine and good, and perhaps you can even hear "some*"
difference, but it still doesn't alter the fact that the Oppo in
question still uses the same SabreDac 32 which converts DSD to LPCM
before playing it,

I don't think so: according to their white paper, they feed the DSD
data into their anti-imaging filter, which runs at a very high
frequency. There's no suggestion that they downsample it to LPCM
first; or do you have some other information?

They use the SabreDAC 32. It converts DSD to LPCM. My information comes
from the Oppo Technical guy.

Hmm. Must be true, then. Under the circumstances, I think I'll go by
the ESS white paper. But even if it does, there's no reason to
suspect that doing so will cause any audible damage.

Thanks for the clarification. I'm going to have to run over to Oppo US
headquarters and talk with their technical guy again (they're about a
mile from here). What you say makes sense and the white paper
certainly points at what you say being correct.

It might just be a matter of terminology. Perhaps there is some
decimation going on. However, DSD runs at 2.8224 MHz and the
SabreDac's anti-imaging filter runs at "up to" 40 MHz, so the obvious
way to do it, if you had compute power to spare, would be to convert
DSD to DSD-wide (i.e. PCM-narrow) and feed it straight into the
filter.

Andrew.

[a***@gmail.com]

Post by Andrew Haley

Post by Audio_Empire

Post by Andrew Haley

Post by Audio_Empire

Post by Andrew Haley

Post by Audio_Empire
This is all fine and good, and perhaps you can even hear "some*"
difference, but it still doesn't alter the fact that the Oppo in
question still uses the same SabreDac 32 which converts DSD to LPCM
before playing it,

I don't think so: according to their white paper, they feed the DSD
data into their anti-imaging filter, which runs at a very high
frequency. There's no suggestion that they downsample it to LPCM
first; or do you have some other information?

They use the SabreDAC 32. It converts DSD to LPCM. My information comes
from the Oppo Technical guy.

Hmm. Must be true, then. Under the circumstances, I think I'll go by
the ESS white paper. But even if it does, there's no reason to
suspect that doing so will cause any audible damage.

Thanks for the clarification. I'm going to have to run over to Oppo US
headquarters and talk with their technical guy again (they're about a
mile from here). What you say makes sense and the white paper
certainly points at what you say being correct.

It might just be a matter of terminology. Perhaps there is some
decimation going on. However, DSD runs at 2.8224 MHz and the
SabreDac's anti-imaging filter runs at "up to" 40 MHz, so the obvious
way to do it, if you had compute power to spare, would be to convert
DSD to DSD-wide (i.e. PCM-narrow) and feed it straight into the
filter.
Andrew.

Hi Andrew,
In your opinion, what would be the best choice for serious listening (Oppo 105 or XA5400ES)?. Any comments would be gratefully appreciated. I am not good with technical details.

Many Thanks in Advance
/Aruna

[Andrew Haley]

Post by a***@gmail.com

Post by Andrew Haley
It might just be a matter of terminology. Perhaps there is some
decimation going on. However, DSD runs at 2.8224 MHz and the
SabreDac's anti-imaging filter runs at "up to" 40 MHz, so the obvious
way to do it, if you had compute power to spare, would be to convert
DSD to DSD-wide (i.e. PCM-narrow) and feed it straight into the
filter.

Hi Andrew,

Hi,

Post by a***@gmail.com
In your opinion, what would be the best choice for serious listening
(Oppo 105 or XA5400ES)?. Any comments would be gratefully
appreciated. I am not good with technical details.

I'm not personally familiar with the Sony. They're both very
high-quality units, and I suspect that neither would be the weak link
in any audio system, regardless of its price. Oppo is newer, and
plays a lot more formats, and IME would be better value for money.

Andrew.

[news]

Post by Andrew Haley

Post by a***@gmail.com

Post by Andrew Haley
It might just be a matter of terminology. Perhaps there is some
decimation going on. However, DSD runs at 2.8224 MHz and the
SabreDac's anti-imaging filter runs at "up to" 40 MHz, so the
obvious way to do it, if you had compute power to spare, would be
to convert DSD to DSD-wide (i.e. PCM-narrow) and feed it straight
into the filter.

Hi Andrew,

Hi,

Post by a***@gmail.com
In your opinion, what would be the best choice for serious listening
(Oppo 105 or XA5400ES)?. Any comments would be gratefully
appreciated. I am not good with technical details.

I'm not personally familiar with the Sony. They're both very
high-quality units, and I suspect that neither would be the weak link
in any audio system, regardless of its price. Oppo is newer, and
plays a lot more formats, and IME would be better value for money.

I don't like the performance of my Oppo's RC, and there seem to be many
others who say the same thing.
It's not too responsive, as compared to many others that I use.

Post by Andrew Haley
Andrew.

[Andrew Haley]

Post by news
I don't like the performance of my Oppo's RC, and there seem to be many
others who say the same thing.
It's not too responsive, as compared to many others that I use.

"RC" as in Remote Control? Yes, I agree. It's not very good at all.

Andrew.

[George Graves]

Post by a***@gmail.com

Post by Andrew Haley

Post by Audio_Empire

Post by Andrew Haley

Post by Audio_Empire

Post by Andrew Haley

Post by Audio_Empire
This is all fine and good, and perhaps you can even hear "some*"
difference, but it still doesn't alter the fact that the Oppo in
question still uses the same SabreDac 32 which converts DSD to LPCM
before playing it,

I don't think so: according to their white paper, they feed the DSD
data into their anti-imaging filter, which runs at a very high
frequency. There's no suggestion that they downsample it to LPCM
first; or do you have some other information?

They use the SabreDAC 32. It converts DSD to LPCM. My information comes
from the Oppo Technical guy.

Hmm. Must be true, then. Under the circumstances, I think I'll go by
the ESS white paper. But even if it does, there's no reason to
suspect that doing so will cause any audible damage.

Thanks for the clarification. I'm going to have to run over to Oppo US
headquarters and talk with their technical guy again (they're about a
mile from here). What you say makes sense and the white paper
certainly points at what you say being correct.

It might just be a matter of terminology. Perhaps there is some
decimation going on. However, DSD runs at 2.8224 MHz and the
SabreDac's anti-imaging filter runs at "up to" 40 MHz, so the obvious
way to do it, if you had compute power to spare, would be to convert
DSD to DSD-wide (i.e. PCM-narrow) and feed it straight into the
filter.
Andrew.

Hi Andrew,
In your opinion, what would be the best choice for serious listening (Oppo 105 or XA5400ES)?. Any comments would be gratefully appreciated. I am not good with technical details.
Many Thanks in Advance
/Aruna

I'm not Andrew and while I have heard a XA5400ES, I'm more familiar
with a Sony XA77ES SACD/CD player. It is still, after 10 years, the
best sounding CD player (and SACD player) I have heard. Easily besting
the Oppo 105.

Audio_Empire

[Tater]

Post by Audio_Empire

Post by Tater

Post by s***@yahoo.com.au
Is there any point of getting the SONY SACD SCD-XA5400ES player if I already
have the best current Oppo available? Does the SONY SCD-XA5400ES player
still offer any advantage for CD and SACD playing?
Thanks,
Simonel

http://www.modwright.com/modifications/oppo-bdp83-and-bdp83se-mod.php

This is all fine and good, and perhaps you can even hear "some*"
difference, but it still doesn't alter the fact that the Oppo in
question still uses the same SabreDac 32 which converts DSD to LPCM
before playing it, It you want the best SACD playback, one of the
purpose-built ES series Sony players is likely going to do a better job
than any player which converts DSD before playing it.

Looking at the BDP-105 manual, there is a SACD Output menu option that
allows you to select either DSD or PCM to be supplied to both the HDMI
output and the internal DAC for the analog outputs. Why would they
have this option if the DAC always converts DSD to PCM as you claim?

[Audio_Empire]

<snip>

Post by Tater
Looking at the BDP-105 manual, there is a SACD Output menu option that
allows you to select either DSD or PCM to be supplied to both the HDMI
output and the internal DAC for the analog outputs. Why would they
have this option if the DAC always converts DSD to PCM as you claim?

Damn good question. I'm going to have to look into this some more.