I received my DS upgrade kit and installed it a few days ago. Playing music via my Mac Mini with Amarra Symphony (with Dirac IRC) via HDMI, the DS sounds fantastic. However, I am having a problem connecting to the digital out from my CD Player – an Oppo BDP-83. I cannot get sound from either the coax or optical connections. When I first turn on the Oppo and select the Coax (or Optical) input, a green light goes on the DS, as expected, indicating a connection, but when I hit “Play,” and the track begins, the color switches to red and I get no sound. Any ideas as to what is going on? I have tried rebooting both the DS and the Opps, with the same results.
I received my DS upgrade kit and installed it a few days ago. Playing music via my Mac Mini with Amarra Symphony (with Dirac IRC) via HDMI, the DS sounds fantastic. However, I am having a problem connecting to the digital out from my CD Player – an Oppo BDP-83. I cannot get sound from either the coax or optical connections. When I first turn on the Oppo and select the Coax (or Optical) input, a green light goes on the DS, as expected, indicating a connection, but when I hit “Play,” and the track begins, the color switches to red and I get no sound. Any ideas as to what is going on? I have tried rebooting both the DS and the Opps, with the same results.
Thanks
I use my BDP-95 all the time to send SPDIF to the PWD-now-DS. You do need to configure the Oppo to ensure it’s only sending 2-channel SPDIF out and not the surround channels as the DS can’t decode that.
The latest Oppo BDP-83 manual says you set the output this way:
Enter the SETUP menu.
Select “Audio Format Setup”
Move the cursor to “Coax Output”
Make sure it is set to “LPCM”
The “LPCM Rate Limit” can be set to anything as the DS can support up to the 192 sample rate.
‘I use my BDP-95 all the time to send SPDIF to the PWD-now-DS.’
Streets, I have a 95 too, if you use a computer input too how does the SQ compare ? I have some SACDs would like to play stereo since I sold my surround player.
I am trying to play standard CD’s on the Oppo, not SACDs or DVD-A’s. The Oppo worked just fine with the PS Audio DAC prior to the upgrade. I did not change any settings on the Oppo. Just unplugged it and then reconnected everything. It is strange. Is it possible that I didn’t connect the digital input board correctly when I did the upgrade? The HDMI works fine so I don’t think that would be the problem.
Thanks, everyone. I swapped out the Oppo and connected an old Pioneer PD-65 I had laying around and that worked so I fiddled with the settings on the Oppo. I’m not sure that I actually changed any settings but fared a couple of disconnects and reconnects it now works just fine. And sounds really good.
Thanks to everyone for the help. The Oppo had been set to “Bitstream” with the PWD and that worked fine and it is now working with the DS, also set to Bitstream. Is it preferable to set it to LPCM?
schacter said
Thanks to everyone for the help. The Oppo had been set to "Bitstream" with the PWD and that worked fine and it is now working with the DS, also set to Bitstream. Is it preferable to set it to LPCM?
When I read the manual yesterday for my reply to you I was under the impression that "Bitstream" included the rear surround information, so that's why "LPCM" is recommended. Does it work with it set at LPCM? I know mine does, but that's a BDP-95.
You got it to work, that’s all that’s important . .
schacter said
Thanks to everyone for the help. The Oppo had been set to "Bitstream" with the PWD and that worked fine and it is now working with the DS, also set to Bitstream. Is it preferable to set it to LPCM?
When I read the manual yesterday for my reply to you I was under the impression that “Bitstream” included the rear surround information, so that’s why “LPCM” is recommended. Does it work with it set at LPCM? I know mine does, but that’s a BDP-95.
You got it to work, that’s all that’s important . .
–SSW
The normal thing wrt. bitstream vs. LPCM in surround context is that for LPCM the soundtracks are downmixed and converted in the source end (Oppo). For the bitstream, the soundtracks are sent to the sink (processor/AVR) or DS in this case for the sink to do the conversion/decoding. If you send Dolby True HD or DTA MA to the DS it probably won’t understand it. The HD Audio signals normally are multi-channel. So I would select LPCM.
Edit:
When you send bitstream and claim the DS plays it I am not sure what is going on.
My only theory is that the Oppo detects that it is not a BD disc and as such send PCM anyway.
rogerdn said
'I use my BDP-95 all the time to send SPDIF to the PWD-now-DS.'
Streets, I have a 95 too, if you use a computer input too how does the SQ compare ? I have some SACDs would like to play stereo since I sold my surround player.
Roger, it sounds awesome either way, but I think I’m limited by my 30 year-old Streets amp being the weak link in the system right now.
But redbook CD from the Oppo sounds great, from my Bear McCreary (“Black Sails” and “BSG Season 3”) but the “American in Paris” from my HDTracks download at 96Kbit over the Bridge was incredibly spectacular, especially in the crescendo at the finale.
It’s total awesomeness no matter how you look at it . . .
Paul McGowan said
I am so glad this got sorted out and perhaps this will be a thread others benefit from in the future with a similar setup. Thanks for sharing.
Perhaps a note in the next revision of the DS user manual that says something to the effect "When using coax or AESBU SPDIF input from a home theater system like a DVD or Blue-ray player, please ensure the player output is set to 'LPCM' to ensure the DirectStream can properly decode the digital input. Setting the player output to 'Bitstream' may result in no audio output from the DS because rear-channel information in this format cannot be properly decoded by DirectStream."
Paul McGowan said
I am so glad this got sorted out and perhaps this will be a thread others benefit from in the future with a similar setup. Thanks for sharing.
Perhaps a note in the next revision of the DS user manual that says something to the effect “When using coax or AESBU SPDIF input from a home theater system like a DVD or Blue-ray player, please ensure the player output is set to ‘LPCM’ to ensure the DirectStream can properly decode the digital input. Setting the player output to ‘Bitstream’ may result in no audio output from the DS because rear-channel information in this format cannot be properly decoded by DirectStream.”
From the coax digital out of the Oppo, I am just sending standard 2-channel CD/.wav files to the DS (and before that to the PWD). I am not trying to send multi-channel, Dolby True HD, DTS, SACD, etc. When I first hooked up the Oppo to the upgraded DS, neither Bitstream nor LPCM worked – I tried both. I then set the unit back to Bitstream and hooked up everything again, and now then it works (again, sending only standard 2-channel data from the digital outs). The optical out works as well. Perhaps the act of unplugging everything and reconnecting it all did the trick. In the last go-round, I did set the Oppo to set the LPCM output to 96, as Ted had suggested, but that shouldn’t matter if it is outputting Bitstream but perhaps the Oppo is smart enough to output LPCM if the disk is a standard CD?
I will double check tonight to make sure I am describing this correctly.
I too am trying to set up my OPPO 95 to play via the coax and using these setting suggested by Streets I can play red book but not my SACD’s. I have also set Playback Setup to ‘SACD Priority: Stereo’. Any ideas why the SACDs don’t play, I also note my green dot changes to red so apparently the connection has dropped.
Enter the SETUP menu.
Select "Audio Format Setup"
Move the cursor to "Coax Output"
Make sure it is set to "LPCM"
The “LPCM Rate Limit” can be set to anything as the DS can support up to the 192 sample rate.
The unit does not send SACD playback through the S/PDIF or optical outs, only via HDMI as PCM or DSD. Of course, you can also listen to SACD through the analog outs.
