Spouses are Precious

I tweak my system a lot, a lot more than the average person. Each time I adjust a crossover capacitor value or change the crossover point, or attenuate this driver differently, I ask my wife "Can you hear the difference?"

We have been married for over four decades now and when you are with someone this long you begin to know and understand a few things about them. My wife is no exception and she knows how important it is for me to hear words that either approve or disprove of what I just did. Our marriage is one of honesty and openness and sometimes what we say to each other may seem harsh. When it comes to feedback on such a question, she often answers with words that are - how shall I say this - political!

While it is true that golden-eared audiophiles can hear minute changes to systems where others cannot, my wife is not a golden-eared audiophile. She does know what she likes and if I screw it up she honestly will tell me that I did so. But for the most part, she says to me in response to my query, "It sounds great!" This is about as political of an answer as someone can give running for governor much less answering a simple question about the sound of your system.

While disappointed on the one hand that I did not get a robust burst of honesty, on the other hand I look at such a statement as an affirmation that I did not screw things up.  What I changed was just not in her scope of acoustic sensitivity.  The burden of what I tweaked then is tossed back to me to look at my own honest core impression of whether this particular change improved the sound, something that left-brained individuals such as myself find challenging.

To answer my own question, I must understand a few things about myself and my musical preferences and biases. I must know what I want and if what I did either moved me closer to or away from that goal.  What to do...what to do...yes, just listen.

The answer always waits within and all you have to do is get to that place of stillness where you do not lie.  "Am I kidding myself or is what I did moving me closer to what I want?" Good question! 
So before I can answer this question I must know what it is that I want.



What do I want?  To me, my audio reproduction system (aka stereo) is about recreating the "being there" experience full of emotion and dimension as opposed to something that "sounds better" (an improved experience of clarity or emphasis).  I found a methodical approach to answering my own question, one of which describes the sound stage. If what I changed improves the 3-D psycho-acoustic illusion, then what I did was a step in the direction toward what I really want.  However, if this psycho-acoustic illusion is somehow compromised, then what I changed moved my system away from my goal. Being honest with myself is the only way I can truthfully answer this question regardless of how much time, money, or effort I used to create this change.  A better question may be this: “Is what I changed what I want or what I think I want?”

If nothing else, my wife is very wise and knows that such an answer will trigger inside me this little exercise in honesty.  Sometimes, I think she does it on purpose just to see what I will do.  But regardless of her motive or reasoning, what I find is value in her words.  Much like a CONTROL+ALT+DELETE reboots a computer to clear up anomalies, looking within gets my head back to that place of understanding who I am and what I really want.  Her true gift of not expressing an opinion is much bigger - considerably more helpful - than any placating words of approval or disproval.

For this I am grateful. For this, I have the opportunity to discover more about myself. Who knew that a stereo could be a good lesson in becoming a better person and raising my own higher consciousness?

Yours for higher fidelity,
Philip Rastocny

I do not use ads in this blog to help support my efforts. If you like what you are reading, please remember to reciprocate, My newest title is called Where, oh Where did the Star of Bethlehem Go? It’s an astronomer’s look at what this celestial object may have been, who the "Wise Men" were, and where they came from. Written in an investigative journalism style, it targets one star that has never been considered before and builds a solid case for its candidacy.

My other titles include:

·  Extreme Audio 1: House Wiring	·  Build an Extreme Green Hot Water Solar Collector
·  Extreme Audio 2: Line Filtering	·  The Extreme Green Guide to Wind Turbines
·  Extreme Audio 3: Chassis Leakage	·  The Extreme Green Guide to Solar Electricity
·  Extreme Audio 4: Interconnect Cables	·  Meditation for Geeks (and other left-brained people)
·  Extreme Audio 5: Speaker Wires	·  Althea: A Story of Love
·  Extreme Green Guide to Improving Mileage	·  Build an Extreme Green Raised Bed Garden
·  Extreme Green Organic Gardening	·  Build an Extreme Green Rain Barrel
·  Extreme Green Organic Gardening 2012	·  Build an Extreme Green Squirrel-Proof Bird Feeder
·  Build an Extreme Green Composter	·  Extreme Green Appliance Buying Guide

Copyright © 2015 by Philip Rastocny. All rights reserved.

Peeking Under the Hood of the OPPO BDP-105

I recently pulled the cover off my BDP-105 to see what was inside.  I was particularly curious about the stereo output circuit board and analog supply and wanted to see if the OPPO folks had done their homework. What I discovered hiding inside were superb-quality design techniques highly uncommon (maybe even unique) in the high-end audio industry.

First, exceptional-quality dual-layered PC boards are used throughout with through-hole connections between layers at what seemed like hundreds of places. This type of PC board does not lend itself to any kind of easy alterations and should therefore be left alone from typical surgical remedies except for those well trained in such high-tech connections (conventional soldering irons are too hot and will most likely damage or lift traces).  So enough on this point.

Second, after taking 173 macro photographs of the headphone, surround sound, stereo output, and video circuit boards, I can tell you that this is a nicely engineered unit.  The well-known reddish colored WIMA shunt capacitors are used in conjunction with JPCON electrolytic supply capacitors for primary filtering and secondary local supply-rail stabilization throughout. The combination of these two capacitors provides a more uniform (low) equivalent series resistance (ESR) throughout the entire audio bandwidth than using electrolytic capacitors alone.

Analog Output Stage of the BDP-105

Bus bars are also used at critical points to assure low-impedance supply rail stabilization and minimal ground looping.  Between the low ESR capacitors and the use of the bus bars, local power at each device is nicely provided.

Bus Bar (above C75)

Co-located on the small Stereo Output Board is the first stage of a dedicated analog power supply with unusually large capacity (6,800uF per rail) to provide extremely low supply ripple and high stability under peak demands.  To give you an idea how atypically large this supply capacity is for the low-power consuming devices used in the OPPO, most good-quality surround sound receivers typically use around 20,000uF per rail in the power supplies for the entire receiver (all electronic components for the preamp, amp, tuner, tone controls, DACs, and SS logic).

Analog Supply Co-located on Stereo Output Board

The OPPO's analog section power supply capacity is about 1/2 of that of a typical surround-sound receiver and the power demands are about 1,000 times less than such a receiver's.  It is well understood that large capacity power supplies translate to higher-quality sound, especially when used in the analog section.  The OPPO adheres to this common knowledge very well and the audible results are quite evident.  There should be essentially zero power supply strain at any listening level or decoding peak meaning that music should sound uncompressed and it does.  Inner detailing is revealed as are intricate nuances otherwise lost with smaller capacity power supplies.

Above are all of the pluses in this design, one that sounds and looks terrific.  However, there is a noticeable trait used in some printed circuit board manufacturers that is also employed in this generation of the OPPO players and it has to do with the production process. Let's see how this process works.

Printed Circuit boards (PCBs) begin as a sheet of flame retardant substrate on which a conductive sheet (usually copper) is laminated. Single-layer PCBs have this sheet laminated to one side and dual-layer PCBs to both the top and bottom sides.  This process can add many sandwiched layers (up to 42 have been achieved) so that complicated traces can be routed in three-dimensions and not intersect or require jumper wires.

So we start designing a circuit board with a computer program that lays out the engineer's design so the components can be optimally arranged.  The program keeps track of point-to-point connections between all resistors, capacitors, connectors, and  so on (called the "netlist") assuring that there are no mistakes (see the Nexlogic video). Once the physical layout is determined, now comes the task of transforming one single piece of laminated copper into individual circuit traces.

Once the physical layout is finalized and the computer program understands what needs to be connected to where, it develops a "map" routing these connections. This map is converted into paths (traces).  To create these traces from a single piece of copper a section strip of this copper is precisely trimmed away.  There are several ways to do this but once the material is removed from the outer edges of the point-to-point connection, it leaves the desired solid copper trace (see the Circuit Skills video to see one way).

While the method of removing this unwanted copper varies, all of these processes achieve the same thing: some material is removed and a lot of material is left over.  This leftover material us usually all tied together in what engineers call a "ground plane" from the theory that ground planes improve noise immunity between adjacent components - which it does when properly designed. However, ground planes are also a source of ground loops when improperly designed, a destructive physical phenomenon well known to degrade audio signals.

OPPO uses this "ground plane" philosophy on its analog output stage PCB (I observed that the headphone board did not). As a result, the analog output stage PCB is full of ground loops. All one needs to do to improve the ground plane philosophy is to remove all possible ground loops by removing a small amount of copper in the trace at the appropriate points (see my previous posting on ground loops to understand more about what this issue is). The figure below shows how simple this is to implement but tracing down all of the ground loops created by the hundreds of component traces can be a daunting task.

Another issue related to the ground plane philosophy is to tie all available grounds to as many chassis points as possible, typically through the mounting screw connections of the PC board.  OPPO does this also on most of the circuit boards thereby creating more ground loops between traces on the same board and between the other boards.

I highly suspect that a minor redesign to this ground plane philosophy to remove the built-in ground loops and use of single-point grounding will further improve the superb sound of this little player. I have emailed my suggestion to OPPO and it is one I hope that their engineers address in a future revision. But for now, sit back and be content with appreciating the fluid sound produced by this well designed and good sounding unit.

Yours for higher fidelity,
Philip Rastocny

I do not use ads in this blog to help support my efforts. If you like what you are reading, please remember to reciprocate, My newest title is called Where, oh Where did the Star of Bethlehem Go? It’s an astronomer’s look at what this celestial object may have been, who the "Wise Men" were, and where they came from. Written in an investigative journalism style, it targets one star that has never been considered before and builds a solid case for its candidacy.

My other titles include:

·  Extreme Audio 1: House Wiring	·  Build an Extreme Green Hot Water Solar Collector
·  Extreme Audio 2: Line Filtering	·  The Extreme Green Guide to Wind Turbines
·  Extreme Audio 3: Chassis Leakage	·  The Extreme Green Guide to Solar Electricity
·  Extreme Audio 4: Interconnect Cables	·  Meditation for Geeks (and other left-brained people)
·  Extreme Audio 5: Speaker Wires	·  Althea: A Story of Love
·  Extreme Green Guide to Improving Mileage	·  Build an Extreme Green Raised Bed Garden
·  Extreme Green Organic Gardening	·  Build an Extreme Green Rain Barrel
·  Extreme Green Organic Gardening 2012	·  Build an Extreme Green Squirrel-Proof Bird Feeder
·  Build an Extreme Green Composter	·  Extreme Green Appliance Buying Guide

Copyright © 2015 by Philip Rastocny. All rights reserved.

What the HECK is a Ground Loop

The little ground loop is a nuisance and the single-most audio-degrading element in your audio system.  Ground loops are thought to be obviously prevalent when connecting one component to another (see https://passlabs.com/technology/ground-loops et. al.) however this little problem is much bigger than an issue between two electrical components that share the same ground connection.  At a box-level, ground loops create hum and noise and if you have ever been to a concert and heard that annoying 60Hz hum blaring from the loudspeakers, you understand what a really bad ground loop can do.  First, a bit of clarification on what a ground loop actually is.

A ground loop is basically a small electrical current that runs between two grounded components when a third connection is made between the two.  In other words, if there is only one path directly back to the ground from any individual electronic component inside of any electronic device (transistor, capacitor, resistor, inductor, integrated circuit, etc.), then there will NOT be a ground loop.  BUT when there are multiple paths back to ground, then each path is by definition a ground loop.

Ground loops are commonly found in circuit boards designed by people who do not understand this issue and as a result noise is generated by these multiple-paths back to ground.  This noise colors the sound as well as destroying how quiet the device could potentially be.  Below is one example of a circuit board with a built-in ground loop as deliberately created by the circuit-board designer.

Ground Loop in Circuit Board Trace

This is a classic example of incredibly poor circuit board trace design. There are two paths current can travel in this example between point A and point B: one path is on the right side (Path 1) and the other is on the left side (Path 2).  While this may appear to be insignificant, it is in fact how such an attitude populates these little buggers in other circuit boards within the device.  The issue is that electricity does not flow in a straight line but rather takes whatever path it can find, even if that path is in a circle.  So, not only will electricity in this example flow from A-to-B, it will also flow in a circle from B-to-A.

Path of Electricity in a Ground Loop

The time it takes for this electricity to flow in this circular loop (A-to-B-to-A) is what destroys the integrity of the signal passing through the trace from A-to-B. What results is an electrical summation of the two signals that both time-smears and amplitude-smears the original signal.

To eliminate the ground loop, all the designer had to do was to cut the trace in the circular path at any point and assure that the remaining trace was wide and thick enough to handle the current through the remaining trace (a big OOPS!).  Below shows what this may have looked like to assure that electricity flows only between points A-B.

Properly Designed Trace

But how many more ground loops can you find in this same circuit board? Hint: there are nine total. Scroll down once you believe you have found them to see the remaining ground loops.

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

Answer in picture below.

Remaining Ground Loops

Although loops 2, 3, 8, and 9 are not technically ground loops, they are still just as destructive since they provide multiple paths in which electricity can flow.

I hope you understand now that there is more going on with ground loops than current wisdom perceives.  This blog discusses just the problems on circuit boards but many more potential sources exist. SHAMELESS PROMOTION TO FOLLOW: I have written a series of guides on how to look for these little beasts all throughout your system entitled the "Extreme Audio" series Volumes 1-5 that sells for 99 cents each (a bargain) and this series explains how to get the most sound from your system without resorting to cutting traces on your circuit boards.


Yours for higher fidelity,
Philip Rastocny

I do not use ads in this blog to help support my efforts. If you like what you are reading, please remember to reciprocate, My newest title is called Where, oh Where did the Star of Bethlehem Go? It’s an astronomer’s look at what this celestial object may have been, who the "Wise Men" were, and where they came from. Written in an investigative journalism style, it targets one star that has never been considered before and builds a solid case for its candidacy.

My other titles include:

·  Extreme Audio 1: House Wiring	·  Build an Extreme Green Hot Water Solar Collector
·  Extreme Audio 2: Line Filtering	·  The Extreme Green Guide to Wind Turbines
·  Extreme Audio 3: Chassis Leakage	·  The Extreme Green Guide to Solar Electricity
·  Extreme Audio 4: Interconnect Cables	·  Meditation for Geeks (and other left-brained people)
·  Extreme Audio 5: Speaker Wires	·  Althea: A Story of Love
·  Extreme Green Guide to Improving Mileage	·  Build an Extreme Green Raised Bed Garden
·  Extreme Green Organic Gardening	·  Build an Extreme Green Rain Barrel
·  Extreme Green Organic Gardening 2012	·  Build an Extreme Green Squirrel-Proof Bird Feeder
·  Build an Extreme Green Composter	·  Extreme Green Appliance Buying Guide

OPPO BDP-105 update

It has been a few days now filled with solid listening with the BDP-105 directly connected to my power amp.  Initially, my reaction was that of disappointment because the sound added a metallic texture reminding me of first-generation CD players.  I overstated this from a perspective of a knee-jerk reaction and not one from the unbiased position of the ultimate observer.  My experience was not really THAT bad, but the change was so dramatic that it did remind me of how completely unmusical that first generation of CD player's sounded.  Putting it another way:

I was wrong to react so quickly.



So I decided to give it a while and see what time would tell PLUS get the opinion of the other golden-eared member of the family, specifically my wife.  While I was at it, I calmed down and – well, you’ll read about what I did in a bit.

Her reaction was very different from mine in that she really liked the way it sounded.  Now you must understand that each of us has different ears and we hear things in different ways.  What she heard was appealing and her focus is primarily on deep bass.  However, she also explained that the upper midrange showed more presence and the sound stage was quite a bit larger.  As usual, she was correct.

As every audiophile knows, this is a classic pattern when a new piece of gear comes into your system.  Initially, you are thrilled with your investment and then you begin to notice the little things that have changed, sometimes for the good and sometimes, well not so much for the good.  It is probably because of the expense involved that you subconsciously WANT to hear the good points but after time you realize you may be fooling yourself.  You do not want to entertain the possibility that huge investment you just made was a really big mistake.  Or was it?

The challenge is to rise above all engrained and biased emotion and figure out which piece of gear is now the weak link in the chain.  From the position of an ultimate observer, your task is to calmly consider all possibilities.  To get to that calm state of an ultimate observer is a difficult thing to do for many people since it involves going within to find answers instead of looking externally.  Being an ultimate observer means getting to a “blank slate” state of complete honesty with zero biases.  Until you get to that point, your mind will play tricks with you leading you to believe that what you hear is something other than what is really there.

The Ultimate Observer

 
Being completely honest with yourself and dismissing biases is a tough thing to do but when you have done so and find that calm place within you can locate your weak link.  Until you do, you will put Band-Aids on Band-Aids until you throw up your hands in frustration, maybe even starting over completely.  The trick in getting out of your head is to listen to the music and compare it to what an instrument actually sounds like as opposed to what you THINK it should sound like through your system.  In other words, you have to dismiss what you perceive to sound “better” and think about what actually sounds “real.”

How you do this is to NOT go to someone else's house and listen to their gear, what you do is to go to a live performance and listen to what music sounds like without amplifiers or artificially induced emphasis.  What you should do is to listen to a solo acoustic performance preferably in your own listening room.  This should resynchronize your perceptions just like a CONTROL+ALT+DELETE is sometimes needed for your computer.

With the OPPO, it revealed things that were wrong with my system and I was just unaware of the problem.  I became comfortable with what my system did and lived with its short comings.  Eventually, I ignored its perceived deficiencies and appreciated my system based on its assets.  I trained my consciousness to be happy.

Now, a monkey-wrench is thrown into the mix and I must think about what the OPPO is telling me.  I must displace my biases and divorce my opinions and listen to the music.  Is what I perceived as an edginess really not there, it is just a clarity that was muted by the problem with the preamp?  Is the change something that sounds "better" or does it sound more real?  Such is the quest.

What this logically pointed to was a deficiency in the Dared preamp, one where the same sonic characteristics SHOULD be apparent but was not.  In fact, what the preamp should do is essentially pass exactly what it was given and just make it louder.  From the position of the ultimate observer, I realized that this was not the case.  So now I must investigate what the heck is going on inside of this preamp, one with which I was very happy until the introduction of this new piece of gear.

Dared MC-7P Preamp

I have looked at the schematic over and over again for this preamp and yes, it could use some bypass capacitors here and there and yes, the power supply could use some attention to detail.  So it appears that what the OPPO is telling me is that the Dared needs some work.  I raised the level of accuracy of the Dared by originally modifying it but from the position of the ultimate observer more work is needed so that what goes is exactly what comes out - unaltered.

So it's back to the drawing board again and soon I will choose parts for the preamp.  Much must be considered since there is not a lot of room inside in which to implement what I have already discovered.  I may want to do this and that but may be forced into compromising on only one solution based on the fact that this capacitor is too big to fit or that I would better benefit from making this change instead of that one.  For now, I will listen to the OPPO and ponder the changes I am considering for the Dared.  I will entertain what is possible and calmly make my choices.

Regardless, the OPPO sounds wonderful when connected directly to the amp and the more I listen to it the more it pleases me.  Even Pandora sounds pretty good but the high resolution recordings streamed from the USB drive are pretty darned stellar.

Choices, choices, choices.  This is the gift of being human and the one that can be the most maddening – if you make choices from a place where you are not centered.  I choose to move one step closer to audio nirvana instead of backing up, but this is part of the fun of being an audiophile.  Each time you make a change to your system, you have the opportunity to understand more about who you really are rather than focus on what the change does to the sound.  Choose wisely – choose to become the ultimate observer.

Related ArticlesSee all entries about the OPPO BDP-103 in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3; see all entries about the OPPO BDP-105 in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 and the updates here and here.

Also, see the simple FRED diode modification to the BDP-105 here.

Yours for higher fidelity,

Philip Rastocny

I do not use ads in this blog to help support my efforts. If you like what you are reading, please remember to reciprocate, My newest title is called Where, oh Where did the Star of Bethlehem Go? It’s an astronomer’s look at what this celestial object may have been, who the "Wise Men" were, and where they came from. Written in an investigative journalism style, it targets one star that has never been considered before and builds a solid case for its candidacy.

My other titles include:

·      Althea: A Story of Love
·      Build an Extreme Green Composter
·      The Extreme Green Guide to Wind Turbines
·      Build and Extreme Green Hot Water Solar Collector
·      The Extreme Green Guide to Solar Electricity
·      The Extreme Green Guide to Improving Mileage
·      Meditation for Geeks (and other left-brained people)
·      Build an Extreme Green Raised Bed Garden
·      Build an Extreme Green Rain Barrel
·      Build an Extreme Green Squirrel-Proof Bird Feeder
·      Extreme Audio 1: House Wiring
·      Extreme Audio 2: Line Filtering
·      Extreme Audio 3: Chassis Leakage
·      Extreme Audio 4: Interconnect Cables
·      Extreme Audio 5: Speaker Wires
·      Extreme Green Organic Gardening
·      Extreme Green Organic Gardening 2012
·      The Extreme Green Appliance Buying Guide

Copyright © 2015 by Philip Rastocny. All rights reserved.

OPPO BDP-105 direct-to-amp connection

I live in central Florida where winter usually runs the four weeks from the last week in January to the last week in February.  During these days, the heat may come on for six of them, the rest being hugely mild and the best of the year.  During these mild days, the house is very quiet with neither the air conditioning nor the heat interfering with your ability to hear details in the distant background.  This is a good thing when it comes to feeding the ears of an audiophile.

However, as April approaches and the earth passes the midpoint in its orbit around the sun, spring passes and with this passing the weather changes.  Temperatures rise and along with it the ambient comfort level in the listening room.  Tubes are small furnaces and even a modest seven-tubed preamp generates a microclimate of its own.  Combine this with a large-screen television and the two become a significant heat source.

A few years ago, I invested in a new one-piece metal roof with a standoff frame in which additional insulation could reside.  Custom made at the factory and rolled out like a rug, this investment proved to not only shed water exceptionally well keeping us as dry as the Mohave Desert inside but also significantly lower the air conditioning needs of our home by keeping cool air in and warm air out.  A major side benefit of this type of roof is its ability to lower ambient noise in the home because of the added insulation overhead, something I had not considered possible when contemplating this investment.

New Argon-gas filled windows also keep the influences of Mother Nature from creeping in and again prevented normal neighborhood distractions from interfering with my listening pleasure.  You can still hear lawn mowers or leaf blowers but the distraction level and resulting annoyance factor has all but been eliminated.

The point is that home improvements can make a difference in your listening pleasure and in the extreme quiet you are able to hear things that would otherwise be masked by nuisance noises.  As a result of these investments, the ambient noise level in my listening room is now measured at 27-31dB. A low-level gurgling can be heard deep in the noise floor from the water garden fountain  gurgling just outside.

With a listening room nice and quiet, you can hear more information and detail than if it were not (something that should be obvious but is often overlooked even by the purest golden-eared audiophiles).  Like going to an action movie in a theater, the extreme sound pressure levels experienced during explosion scenes will easily mask any nuances, so will distracting ambient noises mask your ability to hear all of the benefits and cloak the handicaps your audio playback system possesses.  I prefer to have a very quiet listening room.

Because of this, I notice things that a lot of other reviewers do not.  I notice that not only does the sonic signature of a piece of gear more readily reveal itself in this murky quiet but also this same quiet will reveal its shining attributes. 

My OPPO BDP-105 is a great piece of gear.  This player has a volume-level adjustment (and muting) function on the remote control allowing you to set the output level to match the level of other components.  This means that when you switch your preamp from this player to another source, you do not have to adjust the volume of the preamp to match the different volume levels of the source signals.  The music flows from your system at the same intensity regardless of which source you are listening to.

Today, with summer rearing its hot head, I decided to let the listening room stay cooler and disconnect the OPPO from my preamp and directly drive the amp from the player.  In the stillness of the morning long before the sun rose, I swapped cables and flicked off the power switch to the preamp.  Experimentation can yield amazing discoveries.  In this case, the experiment of driving my amp with my OPPO gave some positive and some negative results.

First, the sonic differences were few and hard to discern, reassuring myself that the preamp was not introducing much in the way of coloration.  But after listening for about an hour in this extremely quiet listening room, I can begin to hear things.  The clarity in the bass region - especially the very deep bass - changed a little with a more flat affect rather than the "tube sound" inherent when listening through the preamp.  The sound is considerably more sterile and the tweeters and super tweeter reveal more of the old screeches I recall from hearing digital recordings way back in 1983.  There is an edginess to the sound that is unpleasant to my ears that extends all the way down into the noise floor.  This appears not to be a function of the DACs but rather a design limitation of the anti-aliasing filter.   Too bad.

On the bright side (pun intended), the sound stage is better defined, especially with high resolution source material.  With 24/96 files, the sound stage is nice and formed with excellent stability and position.  Switching to 24/192 adds more depth and dimensionality with inner detailing trailing off into the echoes.  Even with very low level presentations the Sabre32 DACs do a superb job of decoding this low-level data stream and uniformly recreate the same instrument with the same tonal balance.  This is a good thing, a very good thing.

Listening to Pandora, the music is just wrong.  There is a over-emphasis in the upper midrange that is frankly disturbing.  I use Pandora like elevator music just to fill the day with memories of good music but now it appears that this pleasant background experience has changed.  I feel like I am sitting in a dentist's chair waiting for the piercing sound of the drill in anticipation of the unpleasant sounds to come.  I find myself listening to Pandora at a much lower volume level than before to hide these undesirable effects. 

I admit it: my name is Phil and I'm a tube-aholic.  I need a meeting now, so I will go over to a friend's house and listen to his Martin Logan electrostats through his CJ tube preamp and matching power amp and spin some good vinyl to resynchronize my ears.  But I will leave final judgment to my wife to decide: should we remove this furnace-of-a preamp from the playback system during the summer months or not?  I have high hopes that she opts for good sound rather than creature comfort and I believe that the preamp tubes will soon be glowing in the listening room once again.

The reason I am so optimistic is from her response to the question "Why did you marry HIM?" when we were first married.  Most folks perceived our personalities much like mixing water and oil - they just didn't see it working out.  Her immediate and unfaltering reply was "I married him for his stereo."  She too has golden ears and we shall see what the final verdict is in this matter.  BTW, I say this in jest since we both really do deeply love each other.

For those of you considering connecting your OPPO in this the same way in your playback system, I would advise against it.  While it may be tempting to appreciate the momentary sonic clarity improvements, the ear fatigue may be unbearable for prolonged listening.

Related ArticlesSee all entries about the OPPO BDP-103 in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3; see all entries about the OPPO BDP-105 in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 and the updates here and here.

Also, see the simple FRED diode modification to the BDP-105 here.

Yours for higher fidelity,

Philip Rastocny  

I do not use ads in this blog to help support my efforts. If you like what you are reading, please remember to reciprocate, My newest title is called Where, oh Where did the Star of Bethlehem Go? It’s an astronomer’s look at what this celestial object may have been, who the "Wise Men" were, and where they came from. Written in an investigative journalism style, it targets one star that has never been considered before and builds a solid case for its candidacy.

My other titles include:
·      Althea: A Story of Love

·      Build an Extreme Green Composter

·      The Extreme Green Guide to Wind Turbines

·      Build and Extreme Green Hot Water Solar Collector

·      The Extreme Green Guide to Solar Electricity

·      The Extreme Green Guide to Improving Mileage

·      Meditation for Geeks (and other left-brained people)

·      Build an Extreme Green Raised Bed Garden

·      Build an Extreme Green Rain Barrel

·      Build an Extreme Green Squirrel-Proof Bird Feeder

·      Extreme Audio 1: House Wiring

·      Extreme Audio 2: Line Filtering

·      Extreme Audio 3: Chassis Leakage

·      Extreme Audio 4: Interconnect Cables

·      Extreme Audio 5: Speaker Wires

·      Extreme Green Organic Gardening

·      Extreme Green Organic Gardening 2012

·      The Extreme Green Appliance Buying Guide

Copyright © 2015 by Philip Rastocny. All rights reserved.