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Amp/Preamp Asylum Looking for a new Amp or Preamp? If you're after tubes, post over here. |
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In Reply to: RE: Pass Labs posted by old Bob on November 3, 2017 at 06:12:00:
Hello Bob,Yes, Oppo is a fantastic bargain for the money. Not only are labor costs lower in China, but there is no EPA or OSHA or worker's comp, or unemployment insurance. Skilled workers can be had for $3 per day. And if that weren't good enough, the Chinese government owns about 50% of Oppo. They are tired of rich Chinese sending their money to the US to buy Apple products, so they are slowly building "luxury brands" that are designed and built in China.
When it comes to video, the licensing fees and royalties costs present a huge barrier to entry for any specialty (high-end) manufacturer, so for the most part they simply don't exist. Your only choices are the major Japanese makers (eg, Sony, Pioneer, Panasonic, Toshiba, etc.) or the Chinese manufacturers who are still (very quickly) learning the ropes.
For audio only, it is a completely different story as there are still at least a half-dozen specialty companies that build CD transports and/or players. The other way to go is to use the Oppo as a source and buy an outboard DAC.
Several have suggested computer-based audio systems. This gets back into the price, performance, features trade-off. The advantage with computers is that you can store all of your music on hard drives, and play it back with computer hardware to do almost anything you want. Make playlists, stream (kind of like radio on demand), create playlists of your favorite music for special occasions, etc, etc.
The disadvantage to computers is that they generate gobs of RFI/EMI that will get into your audio system and degrade the sound. It can be conducted via the signal cables, the AC mains, the AC ground, and also radiated through the air. There are so many mechanisms for RFI/EMI contamination that it s hard to know what will work (or even help) with any particular system. Many have found computer audio to be even more sensitive and "tweaky" than setting up a nice cartridge and turntable. There you have to worry about tracking force, VTA, stylus overhang, anti-skating force, record mats, record cleaners and on and on. Computer audio is very similar with all kinds of outboard clocking boxes, USB noise filters, USB reclockers, special USB and/or Ethernet cables, replacing switching power supply regulators with linear ones and on and on.
I'm not familiar with the brand of tube amp you have, but it's hard work to make a tube amp sound bad. That is probably a great starting point for your system. I would probably recommend getting an outboard DAC and using the oppo as a transport for it, as long as you don't mind changing CD's manually. That's how I usually run my system, although sometimes I play with a dedicated server like the Melco (which sounds much better than any computer I've tried). Call me old-fashioned, but I like to keep things simple. A good dac with both S/PDIF variants and a USB or Ethernet input will allow you to use your Oppo for now and try a computer or server later down the road if you get the itch to experiment.
Hope this helps! Have fun and enjoy the music.
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- RE: Pass Labs - Charles Hansen 11/3/1719:53:08 11/3/17 (0)
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