DIGITAL SOURCE COMPONENTS

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go to: Contents | On The Horizon | Feature | Disc Players | DACs | Music Servers & Accessories | Integrated Amps with USB DACs | Music Download Reviews | Buyer's Guide EQUIPMENT review - Esoteric K-01 CD/SACD Player any linestage buried within a DAC, I expect the drop-off to be precipitous. This has been the pattern since day one. So I was surprised when I encountered a DAC-based linestage, Esoteric’s own D-07X, that performed quite respectably. But the K-01 is another matter entirely. Esoteric put great thought—and backed it up with top-quality circuitry—into this player’s linestage. The volume control is digital, which normally exacts a resolution toll at lower levels. However, in this case the control has a bit-depth of 32, allowing it operate at high attenutation without the usual compromises. Too, Esoteric blessed the K-01 with a fully balanced, fully buffered analog output stage. As a result, the K-01 comes closer—much closer—to my reference linestage than any DAC before it. Take the Jimmy Cobb SACD. Both linestages deliver the same stellar dynamics, tight timing, and virtually identical midrange tonality. On the surface, the differences seem pretty minimal. But, of course, you do give up something by not spending $25k on a separate component. The K-01’s bottom end is not as fully fleshed out as it could be, transients are ever so slightly dulled, and the upper reaches do not have quite enough extension to convey air, a large soundspace, or details like the shimmer of a cymbal. You could live with this linestage, and it soundly trounces every other such unit I have heard, but personally I would not want to sacrifice even a smidgen of what the K-01 does as a source. Conclusion $19,500 isn’t chump change, but how often does such a sum purchase three reference-level components The K-01 delivers benchmark performance as a CD player, an SACD player, and a DAC for both S/PDIF and USB sources—all packaged in a flawlessly operating, elegantly hewn chassis. Its linestage, too, is a standout among DAC-based units. However, I suspect those looking at twenty-grand sources already have a more than satisfactory linestage. What they likely do not have is a CD player that sounds this good, an SACD player that sounds this good, a DAC that sounds this good, and a way to play USB audio that sounds this good. If I could choose just one source component for my system, the Esoteric K-01 would be it. Maybe the distributor will let me hang onto it for a spell. Expect the Unexpected Coming soon, two revolutionary personal audio products by the makers of The Absolute Sound’s “Editors’ Choice” awardwinning Blu-ray Disc TM players. • Over-the-ear Planar Magnetic headphones with open-back design, high sensitivity and ultra-low distortion • Class A, fully balanced headphone amplifier, DAC & stereo pre-amp OPPO Digital, Inc. | (650) 961-1118 | www.oppodigital.com 20 Digital Source Components www.theabsolutesound.com previous page NEXT page facebook.com/oppodigital @oppodigital
go to: Contents | On The Horizon | Feature | Disc Players | DACs | Music Servers & Accessories | Integrated Amps with USB DACs | Music Download Reviews | Buyer's Guide Oppo BDP-105 Universal/ Blu-ray Player and DAC Gives “Flexible Flyer” A Whole New Meaning Chris Martens In recent years Oppo Digital has followed a simple recipe for success: Just build universal disc players that offer greater versatility, more audiophilefriendly features, and more sensible pricing than the competition does, and then give them decisively better sound and picture quality than their peers. Naturally, this laudable goal is a lot easier to describe on paper than it is to achieve in the real world, but Oppo has made good on its promises, year after year and player after player, in the process earning a reputation as the nearly automatic “go-to” source for players that will satisfy discerning music (and movie) lovers on a budget. Historically, many of Oppo’s most popular players have sold for around $499. But with the 2011 release of its BDP-95 universal/Blu-ray player ($995), the firm began to explore a more upscale market. What set the BDP-95 apart was that it was not merely a “hot-rodded,” sonically tweaked version of a standard Oppo player; rather, it was a unique, dedicated high-end model with a distinctive configuration all its own. The award-winning BDP-95 sounded remarkably good both for its price and in a broader sense. Never a company to rest on its laurels, however, Oppo has recently announced the successor to the BDP-95; namely, the BDP-105 ($1199)—a player that promises to do everything its predecessor could do and then some. Like its predecessor, the BDP-105 can handle virtually any format of audio or video disc, including Blu-ray Video, Blu-ray 3D, DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, SACD, CD, HDCD, and more. But with the BDP-105 the universality theme doesn’t end with disc playback because the new player is also designed to serve both as a network-streaming player and as a multi-input highresolution DAC (complete with asynchronous USB). To really “get” what the BDP-105 is about, think of it not so much as a powerful multi-format disc player (although it is that and more), but rather as a multifunction digital media playback hub whose bag of trick includes, but is in no way limited to, disc playback. In practical terms, this means the BDP-105 neatly resolves debates about whether it is better to listen to discs, to stream content from the Internet, or to enjoying audio files stored on computers, because it can quite happily do all of the above. The BDP-105 comes housed in an all-new steel chassis said to be significantly more rigid than the chassis used in previous Oppo players (including the BDP-95), and it benefits from a fan-less architecture, meaning all internal components are convection-cooled (most previous Oppos required fan-cooling). Do such seemingly small detail changes like a more rigid chassis or a fanfree design make for meaningful sonic improvements My opinion, based on extensive comparisons between the BDP-105 and 95, is that they do. Specifically, the new player offers a noticeably more solid and “grounded” sound with quieter backgrounds, improved resolution of low-level transient and textural details, and superior three-dimensionality. Moving on, the BDP-105 uses a beefy toroidal power supply and provides both 7.1-channel analog audio outputs plus two separate sets of stereo analog outputs (one single-ended and the other fully balanced). Interestingly, the BDP-105 (like the BDP-95) features not one but rather two costly 8-channel ESS Sabre32 Reference DACs, one to feed the 7.1-channel outputs and the other to feed the two sets of stereo outputs. ESS’s Sabre32 Reference DACs are used in some very pricey components, making it impressive that Oppo fits two of the devices into its sub-$1200 player. Another new touch is that the BDP-105 provides a built-in headphone amp that runs straight off one of the player’s ESS Sabre32 Reference DACs. While the headphone amp offers relatively modest output, it has the undeniable benefit of being fed directly from one of the Oppo’s ESS Sabre32 Reference DACs, so that it gives listeners an unusually pure, uncluttered, intimate, and up-close perspective on the music (precisely what you would want for monitoring applications, for example). I found the Oppo headphone amp had more than enough output to drive moderately sensitive headphones such as the HiFiMAN HE-400s or PSB M4U1s, though it might not have sufficient “oomph” for more power-hungry toptier ’phones (for instance, the HiFiMAN HE-6). While the original BDP-95 offered a reasonable range of Internet-content options and could play digital audio files from USB storage devices or eSATA drives, it was never set up to function as multi-input playback device or as a high-resolution audio DAC. The 105 changes all this by offering a greatly expanded range of general-purpose inputs, including two HDMI inputs (one that is faceplateaccessible and MHL-compatible) and three USB 2.0 ports (one that is faceplate-accessible). Moreover, the BDP-105 also provides three dedicated DAC inputs: two S/PDIF inputs (one coaxial, one optical), plus one asynchronous USB input. Finally, to complete the connectivity picture the new player provides both Ethernet and Wi-Fi network connections implemented, respectively, through a rear panel-mounted RJ-45 connector and a handy USB Wi-Fi dongle. To take full advantage of these network-connection options, the BDP-105 offers DLNA compatibility, complete with support for DMP (Digital Media Player) and DMR (Digital Media Renderer) protocols. In practice, this means the BDP-105 can access audio, picture, and video files stored on DLNA-compatible digital media servers (that is, personal computers or network-attached storage devices) that share a common network with the Oppo within your home. From this technical overview, you can see that the 21 Digital Source Components www.theabsolutesound.com previous page NEXT page
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DIGITAL SOURCE COMPONENTS

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