Shopping CD players.

Peter W. wrote:Note that Oppo's production is from a third-party fabricator in China as is the way of many of these things. I expect that if the demand for these products continues past Oppo, another outfit will purchase the patents and/or license the products and we will see them soon under another name - and likely at a lower cost.

Oppo *is* a Chinese company, PeterW.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppo
They also make cell-phones, headphones & etc.
They have (or at least had) excellent tech and customer support here in the U.S. Actually had a guy there talk me *out* of replacing my BDP-103 with their newest version. How often does that happen?

deepee99 wrote:

Peter W. wrote:Note that Oppo's production is from a third-party fabricator in China as is the way of many of these things. I expect that if the demand for these products continues past Oppo, another outfit will purchase the patents and/or license the products and we will see them soon under another name - and likely at a lower cost.

Oppo *is* a Chinese company, PeterW.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppo
They also make cell-phones, headphones & etc.
They have (or at least had) excellent tech and customer support here in the U.S. Actually had a guy there talk me *out* of replacing my BDP-103 with their newest version. How often does that happen?

My mistake - I took the printing on their transport incorrectly. But that does not change my expectation that this product will not die with Oppo.

https://www.oppodigital.com/blu-ray-udp-203/images/UDP-203-internal-hr.jpg

PeterW, easy mistake to make. I did the same. But it is a Chinese company that out-sources design work to the U.S. and elsewhere to what extent I dunno.
Smart business model, methinks.
Again, can't say enough good things about their sales and tech support. There's no point in going through a re-seller like Crutchfield. Call the Man and talk to the Man. Their switchboard operators know more about the product than the tekkie you're likely to fetch up at Sony, Rega, or whatever.

deepee99 wrote:PeterW, easy mistake to make. I did the same. But it is a Chinese company that out-sources design work to the U.S. and elsewhere to what extent I dunno.
Smart business model, methinks.
Again, can't say enough good things about their sales and tech support. There's no point in going through a re-seller like Crutchfield. Call the Man and talk to the Man. Their switchboard operators know more about the product than the tekkie you're likely to fetch up at Sony, Rega, or whatever.

Funny thing about that. I once had the experience of dialing the Mouser 800 number at 8:00 pm of a Saturday to leave a message about an order. I got a live person who walked me through the entire order suggesting alternatives, possible improvements based on the application - by the time she was done with me (take that any way you wish), the order had changed, nearly doubled in size, but addressed concerns I had never considered. Right down to discouraging the use of Vishay wire-wound resistors (inductors) and moving me over to Dale aluminum-finned resistors (ceramic-core) that could be connected to the chassis for heat reduction - lower cost as well. Where the increase in the order came from was for retrofitting past repairs with better alternatives.

Customer service is rare, and to be treasured.

I've found Mouser a great company to deal with. I always get a nice person to deal with, and they are helpful and knowledgeable. Never had a problem order with them. They are part of the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio of companies too. It seems that today, companies really don't care whether you remain a customer or not. I don't know how they survive. It makes no sense to me to have to almost beg them to sell you a product. I had a sales job after college, and I would do what I could to get that sale to close. I don't know what has changed since then, but the attitude seems to be different. I think things have changed at Crutchfield. The out of stock situation has me wondering about the company stability if not the lack of concerned managers having product for sale.

Seems like there are still a lot of options for CD players. Rega has just released their Apollo CDP that lists for about $1000.  It's already received a positive review in one of the HiFi mags.

This makes me wonder why Oppo has stopped developing new products not limited to just Universal disc players like the 203 & 205 but the DAC and headphones they had designed. I remember the death knell was announced for the LP when CD's hit the market and now vinyl is being stocked at Best Buy while the y have stopped stocking CD's. So I'm anticipating CD's will at least exist in the future if only as a niche product. Digital downloads were not around when CD's were released and it at least appears that downloads/steaming are making an impact that CD's could not come close to approaching.

jimmeq wrote:Seems like there are still a lot of options for CD players. Rega has just released their Apollo CDP that lists for about $1000.  It's already received a positive review in one of the HiFi mags.

This makes me wonder why Oppo has stopped developing new products not limited to just Universal disc players like the 203 & 205 but the DAC and headphones they had designed. I remember the death knell was announced for the LP when CD's hit the market and now vinyl is being stocked at Best Buy while the y have stopped stocking CD's. So I'm anticipating CD's will at least exist in the future if only as a niche product. Digital downloads were not around when CD's were released and it at least appears that downloads/steaming are making an impact that CD's could not come close to approaching.

And we all survived the CD vs. Vinyl battles, now to be replaced with the Download vs. CD battle.

I am of the opinion that over the last 20 years, "Audio" has been dumbed down to the point where the 'present generation' believes that good sound may be had from earbuds and/or a computer speaker. At that level, even a poor download sounds as good as anything else. Opening the door.

Ah, well.

I finally got around to trying my Oppo 203 as a music server. I copied all of my music from iTunes onto a new external drive and plugged it into the 203. I had to format the drive in FAT32 for it to work. And it works well. A simple and easy to use interface and it sounds great!

I received notification that they now have the CD player in stock. So one is on it's way to me. Should arrive next week. I think that should be a nice CD player for me since I am just focusing on playing CD's, and this player
is designed primarily for that function.  Will report back after it arrives and I've spent some listening time with it.

Frank111 wrote:I received notification that they now have the CD player in stock. So one is on it's way to me. Should arrive next week. I think that should be a nice CD player for me since I am just focusing on playing CD's, and this player
is designed primarily for that function.  Will report back after it arrives and I've spent some listening time with it.

You won't be sorry, Frank. Their QC is among the best.

deepee99 wrote:

Peter W. wrote:Note that Oppo's production is from a third-party fabricator in China as is the way of many of these things. I expect that if the demand for these products continues past Oppo, another outfit will purchase the patents and/or license the products and we will see them soon under another name - and likely at a lower cost.

Oppo *is* a Chinese company, PeterW.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppo
They also make cell-phones, headphones & etc.
They have (or at least had) excellent tech and customer support here in the U.S. Actually had a guy there talk me *out* of replacing my BDP-103 with their newest version. How often does that happen?

Oppo Digital, responsible for the development of their Blu-Ray players is based in California, USA...….. Wikipedia : OPPO Digital (Chinese: OPPO影音)[1] is an independently operated overseas division sharing the brand name OPPO with OPPO Electronics, both owned by Chinese company BBK Electronics.[2][3] Founded in 2004, it is based in Menlo Park, California.[4] OPPO Digital designs and markets audio and video equipment, including Blu-ray Disc players and personal audio products such as headphones and headphone amplifiers, mainly targeting markets in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, USA, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and India.

On April 2, 2018, Oppo Digital announced they were winding down product production and stopping development of new products, but would continue to support existing on


I have a Oppo BD105 since 2013....Perfect ! When I heard about them stopping production, I bought a second one (demo model of a dealer) for 1/2 price…….

Peter W. wrote:

jimmeq wrote:Seems like there are still a lot of options for CD players. Rega has just released their Apollo CDP that lists for about $1000.  It's already received a positive review in one of the HiFi mags.

This makes me wonder why Oppo has stopped developing new products not limited to just Universal disc players like the 203 & 205 but the DAC and headphones they had designed. I remember the death knell was announced for the LP when CD's hit the market and now vinyl is being stocked at Best Buy while the y have stopped stocking CD's. So I'm anticipating CD's will at least exist in the future if only as a niche product. Digital downloads were not around when CD's were released and it at least appears that downloads/steaming are making an impact that CD's could not come close to approaching.

And we all survived the CD vs. Vinyl battles, now to be replaced with the Download vs. CD battle.

I am of the opinion that over the last 20 years, "Audio" has been dumbed down to the point where the 'present generation' believes that good sound may be had from earbuds and/or a computer speaker. At that level, even a poor download sounds as good as anything else. Opening the door.

Ah, well.

Well, I believe that the vinyl revival is thanks to the 'present' generation…………. I know many in their '30ies that appreciate quality music reproduction…… I'm hopeful.

I'd buy an Oppo turntable in a heartbeat, if it were designed and made by the same guys.

Deepee99, What ever happened to that turntable with the levitating platter?

Dave_in_Va wrote:Deepee99, What ever happened to that turntable with the levitating platter?

Ostensibly, da cheque is in da mail. Or not.

The CD player arrived exactly on the date promised. No damage to the box in shipping, and that is a good thing.

This is a very nicely constructed player. The front panel is aluminum, not plastic. The overall look of the build quality is very high, and this was what
I was hopeing for. The player is easy to connect. For my use, just the AC line connection and both analog out cables to the pre-amp were all that was
required. The controls on the panel are nicely laid out, and it does not take long to know what they do. Same for the remote control. It does not take long
to learn how to use it.  The CD drawer is very quiet and smooth in operation. I believe that this is the exact same drive that Yamaha uses in the next models
up from this one, which run into the thousands of dollars.

You can take all of the adjectives you read in audio reviews and apply it to this player. Detailed, great soundstage, strong bottom end, etc. This player sounds fantastic!
I played through many of my CD's and really heard detail that the other player did not produce. And it does sound like a very fine veil has been removed from the overall
sound. I can hear it. There is also a position called 'pure direct' which purpose is to allow the highest possible sound quality from the player. In this mode, the front
panel display is turned off, and I don't know what else in there as well. I tried it back and forth, and I don't know if I can hear anything. Time will tell with that.

I think that CD player development has probably hit a maturity where this player will be satisfactory for many years to come. I'd also bet that many other players in this
price category would be equally good. But I like the fact that this player was designed for audio reproduction, and all of the engineering effort went into that purpose.

I looked at the Crutchfield website before I wrote this, and again, they are out of stock of this model. So I guess I'm not the only one who likes it!