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noticed this with Swing Live, so it’s unlikely that it was caused by the conversion of DSD to PCM. Change is a challenge and an opportunity John Atkinson had kindly lent me his Pioneer DV-578A DVD player, which he’d bought for $160, as a “real-world” comparison. Did the Oppo better the Pioneer? Well, yes— but if you’re only going to be using the players’ analog outputs, it probably makes little sense to trade one for the other. The Oppo was less smeared in the high end, which meant that Haendel’s tone was more polished and Peter Appleyard’s vibes had more clangy overtones. Both players were disappointing in the low end. No, that’s too harsh—compared to the universal players to which I’ve been listening, the Ayre C-5xe and Krell Evolution 505, neither the Oppo nor the Pioneer was completely satisfying, especially in the bottom end. Yet both players were revelations to me: I’d had no idea how good sub-$200 digital had become, much less sub-$200 universal digital players. Good as the Oppo is, when I switched into the system the Ayre K- 5xe—the universal player I actually own—the differences weren’t hard to hear. The room acoustic of Swing Live was bigger, deeper, more solid. Moore’s bass sound was larger, louder, and far more tightly coupled to a discrete instrument, as opposed to just floating in the performance space. Haendel’s performance, which was far from small or lacking in nuance through the Oppo, became bolder and even more incisive through the K-5xe. The woody warmth of her instrument became richer and smokier; the subtle differences in string attack were more pronounced. And although you might think it a strange thing to mention, the elegance of her musical logic became more compelling. As for the Britten, well, wow. It never ceases to amaze me how good SACD sounds when played back properly. I don’t know whether the tremendous difference I heard between the OPPO DIGITAL DV-970HD Oppo and the Ayre had anything to do with the DSD-to-PCM conversion, or if the Ayre’s DSD-to-analog conversion is simply better designed, or if the Ayre’s analog circuitry is just better, but on SACD the differences between the players were simply mind-boggling. It wasn’t simply the aching purity of the strings’ harmonics or the solidity and extension of the deep bass, but also the Ayre’s presentation of soundstaging detail and perspective. The Oppo hung an image between the speakers and extending to my front wall, an accurate, although scaleddown, re-creation of Cincinnati’s Music Hall. With the Ayre, especially in my Room Tunes–treated small listening room, the soundstage boundaries were not constrained by my room’s dimensions. Was the soundstage big as life? Heck no, but it was huuuuuge. And tastefully so. Ability is of little account without opportunity When I re-read the long commentary strands about the DV-970HD on various audio bulletin boards, I noticed that its most vocal advocates were using it to drive DACs, primarily in The Oppo DV-970HD includes a full set of cables, including a HDMI cable for video and digital audio. ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT DIGITAL SOURCES Ayre C-5xe universal player, Krell Evolution 505 SACD/CD player. DIGITAL CONVERTER Slim Devices Transporter. PREAMPLIFIERS Ayre K-1xe, Krell Evolution 202. POWER AMPLIFIERS Ayre M-XR monoblocks, Krell Evolution 600. LOUDSPEAKERS Dynaudio Confidence C1, Wilson Audio Specialties WATT/Puppy 8. CABLES Interconnect: Kimber KCAG, Krell CAST, Shunyata Research Aries & Antares. Speaker: Shunyata Research Lyra. ACCESSORIES Ayre L-5xe line filter; Furutech eTP-609 distribution box, FP-20A(R) duplex outlets, RDP panels; OSAR Selway/Magruder equipment racks; Ayre Myrtle Wood Blocks. —Wes Phillips systems using the HDMI connection. That particular digital pipe is more common in A/V systems than in music-only surround or stereo rigs, and besides, I didn’t have any DACs or digital preamps that employed it. What I did have to hand, however, was the Slim Devices Transporter, which offers 24-bit resolution at 44.1kHz, 48kHz, or 96kHz—making it perfect for use with the Oppo’s hi-rez digital output. It was time to take the DV-970HD upstairs to the big rig. From this point on, comparisons were made in my larger listening room, using the Ayre C-5xe universal player, Ayre K-1xe preamplifier, and Ayre M-XR monoblock amplifiers driving Wilson Audio WATT/Puppy 8s. The DV-970HD was connected to the Transporter with Stereovox XV2 75-ohm coaxial cable. I started with Swing Live and immediately hit a snag—actually, I’d hit the same snag in my small listening room, but there it didn’t annoy me as much. The Chesky DVD-A offers you a choice of several audio mixes (2-, 4-, and 6-channel 24-bit/96kHz), but to choose a particular mix, you need a monitor. With DVD-Vs that first dump you into a menu screen, you can work around this by using the “direct play” hack: Insert the DVD, and as soon as it will let you, press Stop. Then press Menu, and the DV-970HD will skip the warning and the promos and www.Stereophile.com, May <strong>2007</strong> 109
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MAY 2007 VOL.30 NO.5 48 61 FEATURES
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home entertainment 2007

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