OPPO BDP-83SE - Blu-ray disc player - upscaling - black Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)The preamp/processor I use is manufactured by Krell and does a fine job except it was not upgradable to HDMI. Having to face that fact required I work around its limitations with switches and alternative connections and utilize the analog connections for multichannel SACD, DVD-A, Dolby True HD, and DTS Master Audio.

When the BDP-83 came out last summer I ordered one and used the analog outputs to connect the audio signal to my Krell HTS; that worked satisfactorily although I had to route the signal through a Zektor MAS 7.1 audio switch as I already had a Pioneer DV-47A Universal player which was connected using the multi-audio output and the Krell had only one multi-channel audio input. I had no observable problem with the BDP-83 on any of the media that I played. I have an extensive collection of CD's, SACD's, and DVD-A's to which I enjoy listening and experienced no problems.

When I became aware of the BDP-83SE I was excited at the prospect of improving the quality of sound that I enjoyed from my system. The reviews I read were generally glowing so I ordered one for my system. The player arrived around the end of February and I immediately installed it in my main system and moved the BDP-83 to a secondary system.

By and large I was pleased with the quality of both music and video and was impressed by what it did for the stereo CD soundstage. My Krell permitted me to instantly switch between analog multi-channel and stereo as well as digital coaxial. I found the musicality of the CD's to actually be superior on the stereo connection because of the quality of sound and the superb soundstage created on the stereo analog connection. This was exactly what I had hoped for and was delighted with the results.

Then a problem developed; the music would suddenly drop out at unexpected times on various CD's, the sound would suddenly be completely gone. I started experimenting and discovered that when the sound dropped out (complete silence) the signal would have dropped out on stereo and multichannel analog as well as on the coaxial digital output; interesting to note that I never had this problem on SACD, DVD-A or any of the Blu-ray audio formats, but only on CD's.

I contacted OPPO and was gratified by the interest and concern expressed by technical support. After trying everything they could think of it was decided that I had to ship it back to OPPO so they could try and diagnose the problem. The player is now in transit to OPPO and I look forward with great curiosity to what they may or may not find.

I have now moved my BDP-83 back to my main system and it continues to work flawlessly. When I commented on the reliability of the BDP-83 they responded that the BDP-83SE was a significantly different platform and no real comparison could be made.

I will update this review when I hear back from OPPO. I told them that I really hoped they could find and repair the defect that was causing the problem and was told by tech support that they would run diagnostics on the player and let me know what they found.

For the record the OPPO BDP-83SE was purchased from OPPO and is not the region-free version sold by Amazon.

Update 3-17-2010

I just got a phone call from OPPO technical support; they told me they had received the BDP-83SE and experienced the same problem with the sound dropping out. The unit I had gotten was defective; I asked them if they had experienced this problem with anyone else and they said this was the first time this problem had ever surfaced.

They told me they were shipping me a new BDP-83SE today, needless to say I am pleased and excited. I'll update this review after I've received the new player and given it a chance to settle down.

Update 3-23-2010

This morning I received the replacement BDP-83SE, a new player with a different serial number. I connected it to my system and put in the CD that had given the problem and the same dropout phenomena happened again. Needles to say I was very disappointed when that happened. I tried it several times and got the same dropout on stereo, multichannel, and digital audio outputs.

At that point I decided to call OPPO technical support and see what they might suggest. The man I talked with offered to refund my money, but as I explained to him I really wanted to try and make this work for my system. He then provided some new information which shed significant light on the situation for me; he told me that OPPO now recognized it had a software problem playing back some CD's but other formats were not affected. That was reassuring to me as it confirmed I was not having a unique problem with CD playback. He also said OPPO was looking for a software fix but could not promise success in finding one.

He told me the unit they had shipped to me had been checked out before it shipped and performed perfectly for them and that the problem might be related to a particular CD. The fact that the problem was limited to certain CD's encouraged me to tell him I would keep the player and try a variety of discs and see what happened.

My initial concern was that the problem might spread to other media but felt reassured when he told me it was unique to CD's. This afternoon I've played a variety of media including a number of CD's with no problem. I'll keep checking and update this review if I have new information.

I was reminded again why the BDP-83SE is worth the trouble as I heard music I had not heard before when discs were played on other players.

The excitement is back.

Update April 7, 2010

I have discovered at this point that only two Telarc discs seem to be causing the dropout problem and both are rather old recordings. Everything else I've tried to play has performed successfully and I have specifically tried as wide a variety of discs as possible. For more information on this you can check my reply in comments.

As a result of my research I have upgraded my rating to five stars.

Update June 24, 2010

Oppo sent out an update on May 5th which made a number of changes. For some reason I had not gone back to try the two Telarc problem discs mentioned above. This morning a comment came in from MacGuffin and I decided to try the two discs again to see if the update had made a difference.

I'm very pleased to report the update solved the problem completely; the two discs played as if there had never even been a problem. Congratulations to OPPO for their persistence.

Update 7-2-2010

This morning I was trying to play an SACD but no sound would come out of the speakers on either stereo or multi-channel analog. This was very surprising as I had been playing some other formats with no problem.

I went to the Settings and checked things out and saw no obvious problems; I had set SACD output to use the DSD option so I decided to try the PCM option and the discs played perfectly on both outputs. Being puzzled by that I decided to go back to settings and try the DSD output again and it then worked perfectly.

I have no idea what that was all about, but if you experience a similar problem with DSD, switching momentarily to PCM may fix your problem too.

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Product Description:
Special Audiophile Edition Blu-ray PlayerThe OPPO BDP-83 Special Edition Blu-ray Disc Player is an exciting upgrade based on the highly acclaimed BDP-83. Already well known for its exceptional audio and video performance, the BDP-83 is upgraded with an all new analog audio stage and improved power supply to become the Special Edition.Designed for the discerning audio enthusiast, the OPPO BDP-83 Special Edition Blu-ray Disc Player delivers an exceptionally wide dynamic range, ultra low distortion, accurate sound stage and jitter-free music clarity via its dedicated stereo and 7.1ch analog audio output.The OPPO BDP-83 Special Edition uses the state-of-the-art Sabre32 family of Digital-to-Analog Converters (DAC) from ESS Technology. The Sabre32 family is known as one of the industry's highest performance audio DACs and are often found in high-end audiophile and professional equipments. The OPPO BDP-83 Special Edition uses an 8-channel Sabre Premier (ES9006) DAC chip for its 7.1 multi-channel output. The dedicated stereo output uses another 8-channel Sabre32 Ultra (ES9016) DAC chip by stacking 4 DACs for each of the Left and Right channels to achieve even greater audio performance.Just like the BDP-83 it is based on, the OPPO BDP-83 Special Edition is a Profile 2.0 Blu-ray player featuring bit-stream and full decoding capability for high resolution audio tracks such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. Designed for both home theater viewers and music listeners, it plays DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, Super Audio CD (SACD) and standard CD with excellent video and audio performance in addition to Blu-ray Discs. For a detailed list of features, please refer to the BDP-83 Features and Specifications page.OPPO Digital recommends the BDP-83 Special Edition to enthusiasts who primarily use the analog audio output to connect to either a dedicated stereo or a multi-channel surround system.

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