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Oppo BDP-103D Blu-ray Player - An audio evaluation (Revised 8 April 2014)

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(Revised 8 April 2014) Introduction A fairly sturdy centrally mounted disc tray and USB port in front. IEC socket for lovers of aftermarket power cords, two additional USB ports, and optical and coaxial digital outputs. The BDP-103 does not have any digital inputs, you need to step up to the BDP-105 for that. The Oppo BDP-103 and 105 are very popular Blu-ray players. I recently purchased the BDP-103D (Darbee equipped version of the 103), and put it through it's paces to see whether it could serve as a high quality CD/SACD player or digital transport.  The 103D was evaluated through its on-board DAC and analog output section, as well as fed into my Calyx Femto DAC. The Oppo is serious business as far as Bluray players go, tipping the scales at 4.9 kg. Build construction is sturdy and inspires confidence. The Oppo is equipped with a DAC chip from Cirrus Logic, the CS4382A which is capable of 24 bit / 192 khz sampling. It's more expensive sibling, the BDP-105 sports twin ESS Sabr...

International Sound and Sight Exhibition 2013 (ISSE)

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Just came back from ISSE 2013 ! It seems even more crowded than last year. Live Concerts Live concerts are my favourite part of ISSE. Joey - lovely voice with good control and emotion Astor Fong - Hong Kong's version of Karen Carpenter. Thank you very much for taking time off from your holiday to sing for us. Unfortunately, I did not have the time this year to catch the other singers. The Large Rooms Steinway Lyngdorf The eagerness of audiophiles to get into the Steinway room hinted that something special was going on inside. S$320,000 price tag for the Model D but guess what ? Buy it during the show and enjoy a 10 % discount and get the home theater speakers free. I reached for one of my pockets but only found some lint. I must admire the sales representative, he made the price tag sound like it was perfectly normal for the typical audiophile. Open baffle design. Air Motion Transformer tweeter.  The control centre. Fully active system that has room correction processing. The speak...