Oppo steps up. . .
As I wrote in this column in January, I was impressed with the sound of the Oppo DV-980H universal player ($169) feeding high-resolution audio via its HDMI v.1.2 connection directly into the Integra DTC-9.8, and not very impressed with its analog output. But of course, some of the onus must fall on the Integra's analog input stages. So I grabbed the DV-980H (it weighs almost nothing) and took it to my Manhattan apartment, where I plugged it into the big system there via the analog inputs of the Meridian Reference 861 processor.
Ho-hum. Or rather, no hum, but no oh-ho, either. Compared to the resident Bel Canto PL-1a universal player, the DV-980H sounded fairly edgy in the highs, with a rather disembodied bass that served to separate the bass instruments from their ambience. Via S/PDIF and with only the Meridian doing any converting from digital to analog, the differences decreased greatly??but that restricted me to two channels.
I then got an e-mail from Oppo offering me an early sample of their new universal player, the DV-983H ($399). At first, I dithered??this product's big attractions were all video: its incorporation of Anchor Bay Technologies' ABT102 deinterlacer and ABT1018 scaler and frame-rate converter. While these may be hot stuff for videophiles, they're irrelevant to the sound. But supposedly, beta testers had said that the DV-983H's audio performance was better than the DV-980H's. If it retained or improved on the digital performance of the DV-980H and was a superior performer via its analog outputs, the DV-983H might be an Oppo for everyone.
The DV-983H arrived in the same neat packaging as had the DV-980H, accompanied by the same remote control, the same AC and HDMI cables. (A pre-release draft of the user manual arrived via e-mail.) The enclosure's size, weight, and general appearance were also similar to those of the DV-980H; the DV-983H seemed to differ only in the relocation of the USB port from the front to the rear panel (too bad), and in the higher number of product logos on the top of its case??most prominently, "VRS by ABT," which trumpets the inclusion of ABT's Video Reference Series processing.
My familiarity with the DV-980H meant that installing and setting up the DV-983H with the Integra DTC-9.8 was a piece of cake. I swiftly navigated the setup menus and had it up and running in minutes. When I inserted an SACD, I discovered that the DV-983H's onscreen display reveals more information about the title, performer, and track than had the DV-980H's display. But in the course of listening to a dozen SACDs, along with DVDs and DVD-Audio discs, it suddenly occurred to me that I was hearing them all as PCM sources, and that the DV-983H had never asked me if I'd wanted to. Going back to the menus, I found that the option of selecting DSD or PCM output from an SACD was not present.
Oppo responded to my query by saying that "due to the insertion of the ABT video processor chipset in the signal path"??the new model's raison d'être??"the DV-983H cannot output DSD in its native format via HDMI. This is because adding the video processor chipset requires an external HDMI transmitter, but the decoder chip does not have native DSD output to feed into an external HDMI transmitter."
This was no great disappointment; I had already discovered that I prefer DSD-derived PCM output to the DSD from the DV-980H to the DTC-9.8. But others may have a different preference??and I can easily envision having a different preference myself had I used the Oppo with the HDMI input and processing of another pre-pro. Still, the sound of the DV-983H via HDMI was every bit as good as that from the DV-980H. (Speaking off-topic and beyond my core competencies, I thought the DV-983H's video performance was quite the best I've seen at home with standard-definition DVDs. Nice little box.)
Crunch time. I took the DV-983H to Manhattan and connected it, the DV-980H, and the Bel Canto PL-1a to a Zektor MAS3 analog multichannel input-selector switch, and the Zektor's output to the Meridian 861's multichannel input. With this level playing field, I popped in disc after disc, with an emphasis on multichannel and hi-rez formats. As I switched among the three players, the results were pretty consistent. The Bel Canto was still the champ, but Oppo's DV-983H was a clear advance over their DV-980H via their analog outputs. Where the DV-980H created a strange differentiation between the front-channel voices and what should have been an enveloping ambience, the DV-983H presented these soundfields as complementary. It was also less tizzy in the extreme HF than its elder brother, although still bright when compared with the Bel Canto. Furthermore, the DV-983H's bass was more solid and defined. Yet the Bel Canto PL-1a revealed still more detail in the bass, and more precise positioning of instruments across its generous soundstage.
Up and down the feature list, the DV-983H is as good or better an audio player than the DV-980H. For those requiring analog audio output, it's better than the DV-980H but still no giant killer. It undoubtedly justifies its price??more than twice that of the DV-980H??for its video performance, but, in my opinion, not for the small improvement in sound quality. Then again, who's going to buy such a player, with its HDMI output and cutting-edge ABT video processing, and not prize it for its video performance? Buy it for that reason, and you get a better audio player, too.