Oppo Ceasing Production

[richardfinegold]

The U.S. website for Oppo electronics announced yesterday that they are ceasing production. They promise to support products for a few years.
Oppo is best known for the Universal Blu Ray Players, which besides spinning Blu Rays are well regarded CD Players, DACs, and computer file players. Their player will output the DSD layer of SACD, and their latest players are streamers as well. They have used the highly regarded ESS Sabre chips in both their digital and analog output stages.
They also make Planar Magnetic Headphones and portable Headphone Amps that are highly regarded.
Oppo products have been superb, reliable, and had exemplary product support. They also have been great value, providing true High End Sound for real world prices. I have the 105 BDP and the PM 3 Headphones.
I am personally very saddened by this news

[Dave2002]

This does seem unfortunate. I have one Oppo unit - now old in technology years - and vaguely cherished the notion that I might buy a more recent and more expensive (and hopefully better) model to play all (or at least most) of the disc types currently available some time in the future. I could presumably still do this, though whether there’d be any service later on is now less likely.

What competitor products might fill the gap, or is the gap simply now an inevitable and unsustainable void for any company trying to stay afloat?

[Braunschlag]

An interesting development. Apart from the updated universal player they don’t seem to have released any newer models for some time.
Having lived with the BDP-105 and a pair of PM3s I can certainly vouch for their top quality. Er, I’ve since parted company with them for various reasons but they were certainly a wake-up call for the larger manufacturers. Maybe they were making things over budget, it was battleship build gear

[richardfinegold]

Besides the Universal Disk Players, They had recently released a stand alone DAC, the Sonics, which goes for about $800 here. Apparently it also functioned as a streamer , and their latest Universal Players also functioned as Streamers ad well.
There isn’t any other company that I am aware of that makes one machine that plays CD, DVD-A, Blu Ray (Audio and Video), DVD-V, USB 2.0 and 3.0, has every conceivable Digital input to access it’s internal High Quality DAC, recognizes every conceivable file format, and streams, all without causing an overheating of the Credit Card. The only thing left is Bluetooth.
Their headphones obviously live in a competitive environment, but it’s hard to imagine a better value than the PM-3, which is superb at around $400. As Braunschlag says, it doesn’t feel like cheap gear.
Sony makes a Universal Player for around $500. In contrast to the Oppos, it feels plasticky and budget like, and it’s sound is nothing to crow about, although it’s probably going to be used as a Digital transport into an external DAC by most owners

[Braunschlag]

I recall that Pioneer came up with something similar to Oppos universal player but at a price where the Oppo unit crushed it in terms of flexibility. It really did everything conceivable and was future-proofed way beyond anything else. It read audio files and jpegs off an external HDD faster than anything else I’d seen or used.
I did have their HA-1 headphone/dac for a while as well and that was some tool. If I’ve learnt anything from them it’s that a full fat flac file can sound every bit as good as the original disc.
The PM3s were fantastic but they did feel a bit bulky, hence my later purchase of some B&O H6 ‘phones, they are very much like the PM3 in my opinion.
Oppo busted the law of diminishing returns for me, it really was a big advance in quality and they held their value well when I exchanged them.

[richardfinegold]

I recall that Pioneer came up with something similar to Oppos universal player but at a price where the Oppo unit crushed it in terms of flexibility. It really did everything conceivable and was future-proofed way beyond anything else. It read audio files and jpegs off an external HDD faster than anything else I’d seen or used.
I did have their HA-1 headphone/dac for a while as well and that was some tool. If I’ve learnt anything from them it’s that a full fat flac file can sound every bit as good as the original disc.
The PM3s were fantastic but they did feel a bit bulky, hence my later purchase of some B&O H6 ‘phones, they are very much like the PM3 in my opinion.
Oppo busted the law of diminishing returns for me, it really was a big advance in quality and they held their value well when I exchanged them.

I ordered a BD 203. I had been dithering about getting one and the announcement made me pull the trigger. I use my 105 as a Digital Transport, both for CDs, SACD, and downloads into 2 othe DACS. The 203 can do the same thing over HDMI but I can switch the 105 to the surround sound system, get rid of about 4 boxes in that system, and have all the digital sources wired into the 105 and take advantage of the superior DAC in the 105 compared to my receiver.
I really will hate to see them go

[Braunschlag]

I ordered a BD 203. I had been dithering about getting one and the announcement made me pull the trigger. I use my 105 as a Digital Transport, both for CDs, SACD, and downloads into 2 othe DACS. The 203 can do the same thing over HDMI but I can switch the 105 to the surround sound system, get rid of about 4 boxes in that system, and have all the digital sources wired into the 105 and take advantage of the superior DAC in the 105 compared to my receiver.
I really will hate to see them go

That seems a good move. It’s what I liked about their gear, it did everything with no fuss. Those Sabre dacs really did rinse my ears out, a revolution.
It’s like all this esoteric equipment though, I do hope you get good backup if/ when it might need repairs, I doubt it willl:)