Oppo BDP-105 First Impressions

[rollo]

Cool Jerome enjoy.


charles

[etcarroll]

yup - that was for you.

and got it - DAC not a 'player' like the Oppo.

I'm not sure if you are replying to me, Gene.  If so, the Schiit Gungnir is a DAC, not a media player.  I will be using a PC as my source with J-River Media Center.  FLAC encoded files will not be an issue with this setup.

--Jerome

[shadowlight]

   Had the EE DAC as well. A VG DAC but no Tranquility . In direct comparison the EE DAC was lean and Hi Fi sounding.
    Budget is budget. Maybe a used Metrum Octave instead.


charles

Charles,

I thought Tranquility was NOS only and limited to 44.1k files only.  Reading through the original post that Jerome made he is looking to play his 24bit/192k files, which the Tranquility will not handle.

[jsaliga]

I ended up ordering two DACs.  The Schiit Gungnir should be here today.  

I also ordered the Teac UD-501, for $849, and I will have it on Friday.  It is the only DAC costing less than $1,000 that supports DSD playback (both 2.8MHz and 5.6MHz).

Here's a review on Positive Feedback...

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue67/teac.htm

Here's another take on the Teac...

http://archimago.blogspot.ca/2013/05/initial-impressions-teac-ud-501-usb-dac.html

I will listen to them both for about a month and keep the one I like the best.

--Jerome

[rollo]

  Jerome the TEAC has some good reports coming in. My buddy in Colorado has one. He is very happy which is a good thing as he is very hard to please.
   I would be curious to know the outcome when compared to the Schiit.
   


charles

[DaveC]

Cool, the Teac looks interesting and DSD may become more important in the future... hopefully it will get a lossless compression format and tagging. Right now, I don't have any DSD files and from what I hear it is an expensive format to buy music in.

For now, a huge majority of my music is 16/44.1 with some hi res vinyl rips...

Anyway, Teac is made in China so I am rooting for the Schiit to come through, I would much rather own products made in the USA.

[jsaliga]

You're correct Dave that there isn't a lot of DSD available.  However, there is a growing catalog of classical music titles at Channel Classics and 2L Records.

http://www.channelclassics.com/dsd.html

http://www.2l.no

I agree that they are expensive but there is at least a dozen titles I would buy.  So if the Teac passes muster then I have no doubt that I will keep it.  If not then I won't spend more money to get DSD compatibility.  I have plenty of classical music titles in PCM 24/192 and am perfectly happy with them.

I have very little interest in 16/44.1.  The vast majority of the digital music I will be listening to is 24/88.2, 24/96, 24/176.4, and 24/192.

--Jerome

[DaveC]

I have very little interest in 16/44.1.  The vast majority of the digital music I will be listening to is 24/88.2, 24/96, 24/176.4, and 24/192.

--Jerome

That's great! I would definitely prefer my music to be 24/96+ 

[jsaliga]

It didn't take me very long to pick a winner.  Both the Schiit Gungnir and Teac UD-501 sounded very similar (not very surprising to me).  On sound quality alone I could have been very happy with either DAC.

To the Gungnir's advantage it had two single-ended RCA outputs and one balanced output, and all three are active.  So I could have connected it to three amps/preamps at the same time.  It was one of the main reasons I bought it.

However, the Teac came in first due to its winning feature set.  I don't want to make too big a deal of DSD support, but it was one feature that swayed me a bit.  Another was support for PCM 24/384.  Granted, there is not a lot out there in these studio master quality formats, but since the Teac supports them now I felt that it was the more compelling choice.

--Jerome

[DaveC]

Schiit may be coming up with a DSD upgrade for their DACs in the near future... might be worth asking about.

And it is made in USA.

But yeah, the Teac is hard to beat for it's features/price...

[shadowlight]

Jerome,

I know your primary goal for getting the dacs was hirez music but can you provide your impression on how it sounds with simple red book cd?  I have been eyeing the Teac initially for red book and using it with dsd/hirez as I start acquiring more of that material.

Thank You

[jsaliga]

I should be able to post some listening notes for you sometime tomorrow.  Are you using a computer as a source or will you be using the DAC with a transport?

--Jerome

[shadowlight]

I should be able to post some listening notes for you sometime tomorrow.  Are you using a computer as a source or will you be using the DAC with a transport?

--Jerome

I will be using a computer with jriver

[jsaliga]

Ok, that is what I am doing.  Had a couple of challenges since I need to drive two setups: my speaker rig and a dedicated headphone set up.

I wanted to avoid having to buy two DACs, which is the main reason I was interested in the Schiit Gungnir.  But I felt the Teac had a stronger feature set for the same price.  Unfortunately this means I have to buy a second DAC for my headphone setup.  I did not want to spend a lot of money for this second DAC.  I looked at the Audioquest Dragonfly DAC, which is a DAC on a USB stick.  The price was right at $250 but it only supports 24/96.  Then I found the M2Tech HiFace DAC, which is also a DAC on a USB stick, and it supports up to 24/384.  The price was $295 so I ordered one today.



--Jerome

[shadowlight]

Thanks Jerome.  Looking forward to your impression.  I thought Teac also support headphones?  I do not use headphones so I am ok with it not having any support