Has the Oppo carried the AV industry?


I looked through my last Widescreen Review magazine the other day (March issue), and I came accross the latest Oppo Bluray player review -didn't read it. In fact, I refuse to read yet another all-universe, all-everything, "the end-all-be-all", "greatest thing since sliced bread", "MUST HAVE", "there is none better", "will revolutionize your home theaters picture and sound quality, to world class levels" article, about the mythical Oppo player!!!..can't do it..WON'T DO IT! NO!!!
Over the last 13 years, I probably honestly read two (maybe three) entire Oppo Universal disc player reviews -start to finish -and other articles discussing Oppo mods and upgrades, articles/discussion that REFER to an Oppo player, as part of some reference system, and inevitably, I find that the Oppo reviews will JUST WON'T GO AWAY, APPARENTLY! They're like bunnies! They keep producing more of their kind, whether you want them to or not!
Lol -I'm just simply amazed by how much attention and press that a lowely disc player has obviously gotten over the years! Surely, owning an Oppo player must bee a system transforming experience! ..a "must have" item, no less. I must have missed out..cause I never owned one. In fact, never really cared to own one! I've been dazled by how good the quality of video processing has been in all the plain-Jane disc players, flat pannel display's, and even high end video projectors I've owned continue to supply me wiht! But, apparently, every one else bought the Oppo. Cause I surely, honesly, can't remember a year that's gone by in the past decade, where I don't rememer NOT reading somwhere about an Oppo player!
It's really felt, to me, like home entertainment AV products, and home theater in general, have been on a "demand" slide over the past decade! 7.1 and 1080p, Bluray, etc, have all been around long anough now, that it's kind of a "been there, had that" kind of feeling I get when I think about this hobby anymore. I guess life and priorities has weened me away from being a die-hard enthusiest now-a-days. And yet, I can't get the Oppo topic out of my thoughts, whenever I look at my gear!..and I don't think the hobby is going to let me forget much about it neither. lol!
Anyone else get the oppinion that this product surely has been single most important product in the AV industry, these past 10+ years?! Because it's certainly been the most talked about brand/topic I can remember reading about, if nothing else.
I really do think they'll be making Oppo's for the next 100 years, period! -even if they'll do 4k upscaling, 4k/8k future exact pixel mapping, wifi-HD streaming, toast your bread and make you breakfast, whatever! I'm thinking that these Oppo's just must have been so good, that no serious enthusiest, whatever-phile, or system owner should have ever considered "going without!"...otherwise, they missed out!?
Well anyway, anyone here who's used the Oppo think that the product has been a make-or-break, indespensible, product that really made all the differnence to the picture quality they achieved, or the sonic experience they got using these things? (I'm tickled pink by the digital AV processing advances I've gotten just upgrading processor and displays, year after year) I just want to somehow hear that I really missed out all these years, and the only important consideration I should have made was BUYING the Oppo! Cause at the very least, I'm not totaly convinced that Apple and Oppo aren't the same company, ..secretly.
100 more years of Oppo players?..servers?? -probably
avgoround
My audio purchases have tended to be investments. I have paid up for the better stuff and been happy with it for years. Yeah, I have also gone round the upgrade cycle but I've generally kept the equipment I've replaced, moving them to bedroom or basement systems.

I won't buy video equipment this way. Video technology is moving too fast; I don't want to spend big bucks on something that can be replaced with a cheaper and better unit in 6 months and become identifiably obsolete in 18 months. I want something inexpensive that will get me close to the state of the art. My Oppo BDP 83 did this.

I have multichannel DVD-Audio and SACD discs as well as CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays. And I have limited shelf space in my AV system. Again the Oppo was the solution. I have been tempted to replace the Oppo with a cheap Sony blu-ray player, but I would lose the DVD-Audio capability. It's easier to just keep the Oppo.

I suppose the next step would be to get something that can stream from online and maybe have hard disc storage. Not yet tho; the technology is still too fluid for me to commit to something like that.
I agree with KR4. I'm not a videophile, but I hear the 105 delivers first-class sound as a dvd/cd player AND as a DAC. For $1200.

Is it perfect? No. Is it worth $1200 for what it does? I'll find out. It's sitting in a box in my office, having been delivered this morning.
Agree with KR4 and one added item is speed. What's had a big thing for me is how fast the Oppo loaded discs when disc loading was painful.

The overall bang for the buck, universal media support, and audio were all selling points for me--especially when similar players were 7x-10x the price for the same thing.
I'm sorry, but I simply have a very hard time believing - picture quality alone (which, btw, should be the only real thing that matters for a Bluray player) -that having an Oppo in my system, was really "that much better" than what some off the shelf Sony player has given me!

The new BDP105 does have superior performance easily observed on my 65" Panasonic Plasma but what's equally important is the quality of the DAC as I already mentioned.

Only the BDP105 has USB input, allowing computer playback through the Oppo DAC. Any decent stand alone DAC will cost thousands. So, the Oppo in addition to delivering world class image subs as a SACD and CD player and allows my Mac Mini playback of thousands of music files.

Maybe not important to some people, but the Oppo streams Netflix and other movie media. You might say "so what?" but remember, the same DAC that supports the Mac Mini also provides superior sound for streaming.

Value is the keyword.