oppo's volume control

Another update, so you're on this forum, it seems you market some kind of preamp like device that's like a straight wire with gain. Good for you, but you, as representing a company, you shouldn't come on forums and slag other companies. That's bad form.

And it's odd that you'd make posts about Oppo's volume and output impedance when you were so flatly wrong. So the P7 has such and such at 5 Hz. Can't trust it means anything just because you say so, as a guy trying to sell something, and as a guy so wrong about the Oppos. You haven't even taken the top off the P7, just going by the spec sheet.

At the end of the day, I'm REALLY not interested in what you have to sell.

If you have any technical knowledge at all Running, you would know that a limited lf frequency of 5hz is only done by having capacitors coupling, in the signal path or in the feedback network of an active preamp.

And you are in a state of confusion as far as accusing me of promoting my Lightspeed product I have not done so at all in this thread, or slagging other products, all I've stated is that direct from the source is the most transparent way of transferring the source signal to the poweramp if all impedance are correct and voltage output is high enough, and in this case the Oppo has all the factors covered.

If clicks and pops are heard it's not the fault of directly driving to the poweramp, or in the far fetched notion of static build up in the same interconnects as when used with a preamp, but the noise trouble imitates from the source itself, and that the dc coupling of going direct is letting it be heard.

Cheers George

Moving the debate on....although personally I wouldn't put anything direct into a power amp other than an Oppo 105-that's the machine designed for optimum stereo playback....I have had the chance now to try the Oppo in this mode.

I've upgrade my amp to a Rega Osiris which has the ability to take a direct input.

The first thing I noticed due to the gain differences is that at volume level 1 on the Oppo is pretty loud as a starting point (0 is mute) although I've ordered some attenuators to see how that works.

What I do prefer is that the Oppo gives a much tighter volume control that the Osiris itself-that 0.5db increase is nice.

I haven't done this particularly analytically and I don't have a sound meter but I have a quick A/B using Beck's Sea Change (HDCD) and Radiohead's OK Computer.

To me the most obvious thing is that going in direct has a much more closed in sound-my speakers neither project the detail or 3D sound staging. It is noticeably different and possibly the change in presentation (I've only had the amp 4 days and only listened normally during that time) is off putting and I'm missing some positives but my gut reaction off the bat etc etc is that in my system with my amp going direct seems inferior and noticeably so.

I will return to this in more detail later as I do prefer the volume control steps via the Oppo.

With the volume issue, how are you connecting the Oppo, XLR or RCA's? Hopefully it's XLR because you'll get about 6 db less using the RCA's which might help your volume issue. I tried anntenuators too but I was concerned that another item in the signal chain wasn't a great idea, although I don't remember detecting anything bad. My results using the Oppo 95 direct to amp were decent, just not as good as with a preamp in the mix.

Runnin the Direct channel on the Osiris is RCA -indeed it only has one XLR input.

As it is I haven't even tried XLR-as my current cables were a tad short due to the Osiris having it's XLR at the far end of things.

I have an XLR cable due along with a set of attenuators for both set ups-RCA and XLR just to see how they work out. I was a tad worried about the extra volume on the XLR so I'm buying a pair just to see.

The Osiris has been reviewed as performing better on XLR and my dealer reckons this is also the case so we will see.

Attenuators are relatively cheap-like yourself I have some concerns but I suppose you trust your ears-they can come back out.