NSFW: SuperBAF Best of 2015 Golden Schlong Awards

Well:

1) lack of resolution
2) inarticulate bass with little slam
3) crappy microdynamics (hate that term)

Sounds like not-music.

As a transport, whatever, but as a DAC, outclassed by the Geek Out V2.

 

Actually, it's incredibly difficult to discern these kinds of differences if you haven't designed your system purposefully for it. I could see you hearing no differences between an ODAC and the MSB on most old fart audiophile systems these days.

For instance, most off the shelf exotic speakers are designed with complicated crossovers and are not very resolving (this isn't a dig against speakers, I listen with my speakers most of the time). Maybe you've built some incredibly transparent OBs like Marv, but 90% of off the shelf speaker gear is not very resolving of fine details.

I would posit that you have problems in your system or might be suffering from hearing loss. I evaluated the Oppo against the X-Sabre and Gungnir on an Eddie Current 2A3 MKIV with monoplates and a pair of f'ing pristine WE417As before I sold my babies (the monoplates) and the amp. I specifically used a modded HD800 for the comparison due to it's resolving ability. My house, although not custom built for audio, is pretty noise free and has two dedicated 30A lines for my listening room, a circuit breaker recommended by a buddy who designs our data centers at work, and I paid (probably too much) to have a new line run from the distribution block to my house.

I'm going to believe what I've heard personally and the opinions of folks like Marv who I have known for a long time, who's perspective I know quite well, and who I've personally tried to trick by asking them to audition gear gear that I've proclaimed to be shit or excellent to throw them off.

As an aside:

Marv, I think we need a sticky on evaluating gear. You and some of the old stodgy Chang bastards really tore apart my assumptions on the old forum and set me on a journey of learning how to compare gear to find the right system for me.

 

Oh, and to be crystal clear, my intent here is to let anyone interested in our 2015 awards know:

The Oppo BDP-105 is overpriced and sounds terrible. On our current scale for the awards this year I would hesitate to give it an M. I have to talk to Marv but maybe we need to open up a "At least it's not the TEAC UD-501" category specifically for the Oppo.

 

I might be. I can tell you quite honestly that, despite protecting my hearing pretty meticulously (wearing earplugs at every amplified concert I've ever been to, listened at reasonable volumes, etc), I definitely have a little bit of hearing loss in my early 30s compared to a decade ago. I can only wonder what fine details I will no longer be able to hear in my 50s and 60s.

Harmonic richness and limited texture? Please define these terms for me as I have no idea what your context is. Are you talking about sound coloration/that tubey OTL sound? There was a glossary on Chang that I aligned my gear evaluation vocabulary with so I could ensure I was discussing the same thing as others on the forums. You can have your own opinions and we definitely encourage disagreement here, but this isn't HF: if you use non-standard terminology with no context while praising a product most senior members have heard and think sounds like shit, you'll be expected to defend your position outside of vaguely citing a comparison done and name dropping experts who were present.

I will also tell you that your position is seriously compromised when you claim this DAC is amazing and deserves praise when your reference platform is a low/mid-fi OTL amp and K702s. Are you going to seriously tell me that this system is a better platform for surfacing the relative merits of DAC than a Craig paralleled transformer coupled amp with the HD800? What other DACs have you compared it to in your system and what specifically did you think showed that the Oppo was a strong enough performer that we should recommend it, especially at the $1000 price range?

If you're looking for context for my evaluations: I have specific reference tracks that I used to evaluate DACs in my systems. I also spent all of my pre-married life as a rabid live performance fanatic, attending at least 50% of the performances every season at Davies and catching pretty much everything I could both in SF Bay Area and Seattle from Lauyrn Hill at the fox theater to the Esoterics blowing my f'ing mind performing haptadama. I'll have to dig out my notes, but off the top of my head I do have an example of what I noticed in my comparison of the Oppo:

In MTT/SFS Mahler's 2nd (picked because I attended at lest one of each performance of this cycle and two of the possible performances where this particular disc would have been recorded + the recording has a ridiculous amount of dynamic range), details in the low strings were lost compared to the X-Sabre and the bass lacked impact when compared to the Gungnir DS. Additionally, in the second movement there's a lot of string detail and some really freaking awesome complexity in some of the finer sounds especially if you pay attention to the string harmonics. It was incredibly difficult to surface a lot of this detail on the Oppo especially when stacked against the X-Sabre. I shudder to think of what I would have heard in a comparison against the Yggdrasil or Gungnir Multibit.

The Oppo is mediocre at best. I know you own it and love it and have a data point where everybody nodded their heads that it wasn't that different from the MSB platinum IV stack, but I challenge you to find a senior member of this place/chang who has heard it and could in good faith recommend anyone purchase it when alternatives in the price range today are DACs like the Gungnir Multibit.

 

Indeed, a stupid term.

 

I'd add that caveat. Unsure if Marv would. I'd personally put it in G if you're only willing to run SE.

 

with full sized cans, couldn't agree more.
for IEMs only- I find the difference between SE and Bal on V2+Infinity isn't as significant but still go balanced if possible to squeeze out that final bit of refinement.