Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Oppo just released a cheaper, universal BD player

So is this just something that owners of an 83 can upgrade to? Or can you buy a BD-83se outright? And if so, how much?

Oppo was offering an upgrade from the standard 83 to the SE, if you bought your player before November 9th; the offered expired at the end of the year. It was basically to allow people who got the 83 before they knew there would be SE model. Now it can only be bought outright.

But why would you? Yeah, Oppo put some nice DACs in the thing, but it's bass management is slightly flawed (fixed at 100 Hz for any speaker set to small), and has no individual time alignment for speakers. Just a generic lip-sync which affects all channels equally (well not the extra, high quality stereo pair, they don't get any delay applied at all).

The best I can tell, the SE is for people who listen to multi-channel music through 5 or 7 identical full-range speakers, and use an analog pre-amp.

Since it offers no improvements on the digital side, and a receiver with HDMI connection is much more flexible for normal speaker configurations; all anyone would really need is the BDP-83, or the 80, if they were not viewing many DVDs anymore, and mostly watching BDs.

Oh ok, good info thanks. I probably wouldn't fork over the extra dough, just curious as to how much it was. I'm still seriously thinking about the 83 myself.

So, CN, the SE won't sound better than the standard edition?

Only if you're using the analog outputs to run over to your analog ins on your pre-amp/receiver. And then you can't apply any delay or correction processing, as that'll defeat the purpose of the better quality DACs (by passing the signal through a ACD and back through the receiver's DAC).

I know you're a analog user, so the SE may do something for you. But for anyone using HDMI, the SE adds nothing--Oppo has stated the same.

I don't know about everyone else, but I'd rather put my money into a pre/pro or receiver with really high-end DACs, so all my equipment can benefit, along with getting proper bass management, and time alignment of the speakers.

Thank you CNeon. I have 2 HT systems, both pre-HDMI, my office system uses the superb Sony TA E9000ES processor/Anthem 5 channel amp, the big system uses the Integra DTC 9.4. I figure I'll keep the Sony (sweet for music, impressive sound quality for 5.1) and sell the Integra even though the Integra is much newer.

I was thinking of the Oppo but I might wait for HDMI 1.4, if I have to replace everything for "look through the window 3D HD realism" I might have to do that. I dunno, although I'm pretty sure I don't want to get BluRay and and HDMI processor/receiver and then find out that HDMI 1.4 and 3D make it all obsolete.