Originally Posted By: casey01
Skiing Ninja falls in to the same category as those operations that want to provide "so-called" upgrades to existing electronics i.e. media players such as Blu-Ray and DVD players. They allegedly will provide "better" internal electronics for superior audio and video quality. Believe it or not, I read on another forum recently where some guy was interested in "upgrading" his Oppo BDP83 for only an additional $800(the player is $499) and this is on a unit with one of the top video processing sections on the market and an analog section that several reviewers are calling it on par with players 10 times the price!

The only thing these "improvements" give you is a canceled warranty!

Well one thing for sure, the prices they are asking are totally out to lunch. I wouldn't go as far as say it makes no difference though. If you understand electronics and how it all works you'd know that replacing the rectifier on the Oppo units is a good thing! Also replacing the clock oscillator can make a huge difference.

http://tinyurl.com/36yyqt

That guy's mods to a DV-980H on the rectifier and clock for DSD HDMI 1.2 transport would make a HUGE DIFFERENCE! BUT his prices again are totally out to lunch.

http://tinyurl.com/n62j7q

That clock would make a huge difference compared to the stock oscillator circuit.

Again though it all comes down to price right. These guys are asking an arm and a leg to modify these units. In the end economics dictate that with "high end" audio sonic returns diminish exponentially with price.

As for an amazing transport, right now, that's out there that can't be beat for the money... look no further than the
Emotiva ERC-1
http://emotiva.com/erc1.shtm

Those Emotiva guys have absolutely amazing product at insane price points.

Take a look at this...

http://tinyurl.com/ler6xf

Notice the back of each unit is the SAME!!!

This doesn't mean Bob is ripping people off... The Sunfire piece will have better more expensive components and be ASSEMBLED in house. As you can see each is identical and the "house" that designed the units are obviously the same people...

The same outfit obviously designed the internals. The back of each unit proves with out a doubt the same people made the initial reference design. Think of it like say GPU video cards... nVidia or ATI ODMs will release a "reference" design and other OEMs will design a retail product based on it. It could be slightly different though with better components like video RAM or solid caps, better heatsink etc.

What makes the Sunfire piece that much more than the Emotiva piece is Bob's people did assembly in house. In other words technical people, IE in house junior electronics engineers, will solder each component. Not all though like say something like the video section PCB that Lonny at Emo has had problems with that's held back the UMC-1 from release. That board would be made in Asia and would be large BGA ICs with 0603 surfacemounts etc. It's obvious these "sections" of the unit will be made by robots etc in large PCB fabrication plants. Back to Bob... his people might put more expensive "voltage parts", clocks etc inside the unit. This can add to the cost bigtime. Also they sign off on the final build and run much more stringent tests on the final product than say... Fing Wong Wing... Get it! LOL

Is it worth the extra 2 grand! I dunno man... for someone like me with a working (hobiest) knowledge of electronics and an old childhood pal working for Ed at EMMlabs whom I can call on to checkout gear and suggest mods to improve the design I'd go with the Emo gear and fix problems Fing Wong Wing had on the assembly line on a bad day... LOL


Solid-State

Last edited by SolidState; 08/20/09 03:20 AM.