Although some of you will know why I am reviewing the 105EU, the rest of you will be wondering why there is Blu-Ray player in front of you. "Isn't this a departure from your usual reviews?" I hear you ask, actually no. Oppo have added an asynchronous USB DAC and headphone amplifier to their flagship Blu-ray player. Costing £1000 (£1150 for the multi-region version), it might seem a lot when you can get a Blu-Ray player for £50 these days, but the features that make it relevant here are just the icing on the cake!
As well as computer audio the 105EU can handle almost any disc format you care to throw at it - CDs, HDCDs, SACD, DVD-Audio, DVDs, Blu-Rays and 3D Blu-Rays. All of these can be sent to headphones, RCA, or balanced XLR (stereo) using the impressive ESS-9018 Sabre DAC. This is the same DAC chip used by the renowned Audiolab M-DAC (£600), only here there are four of them to handle a whopping eight channels of home cinema audio.
I apologise now for concentrating on purely the audio playback here, it rather seems like an injustice to ignore this machine's video and I would love to talk about it's many other features, but I'll be sticking to what I'm best at for now. If you'd like to know more about the home cinema side of things I recommend checking out some other sources as well.
With such a vast array of features you'd be forgiven for wondering whether the 105EU falls into the category of 'jack-of-all-trades and a master on none'. The asynchronous USB input and headphone output is new ground for Oppo, but high standards of audio certainly isn't and I'm happy to report that the 105EU performs very well for headphone listening. It may not quite be up to £1000 worth of DAC & headphone amplifier standards, but it isn't far off either.
The sound is crisp and highly detailed, with a sparkly high end, deep powerful bass and a dynamic soundstage. Only if I was to be very nit-picky would I mention that it's frequency response leans towards being a little v-shaped, but this will either not concern many people or they may just like it that way. In my opinion this aspect is also more forgiving for movie watching and/or speaker listening anyway, but the delicacy of headphones tend to be more picky and thus show up more subtle nuances. This is not to say that it's bad for headphones, far from it (and I will explain why in a second), but this will mean it'll suit some models over others a little better and will affect personal preference a little more.
I mentioned earlier than the 105EU uses the exact same DAC chips as the Audiolab M-DAC and luckily I happen to own one so right now they are sat next to each other. Both are connected to the same PC and being fed bit-perfect audio from the latest version of Foobar and WASAPI. These two machine's performance is remarkably close, so close in fact that I can't tell them apart. This is a huge win for Oppo, especially considering it's their first implementation of USB audio and they even support a higher sample rate or HD audio (via USB) than the M-DAC!
On the connectivity front the M-DAC has two optical and coaxial digital inputs, rather than the 105EU's one of each, but then the 105EU also has Ethernet, two USB storage and two HDMI digital inputs as well. Apart from the M-DAC's obviously smaller footprint the only other notable features it has over the 105EU are: A physical volume dial & input switches, audio information displayed on the screen and the ability to control audio software via it's remote. All this makes me see the Oppo as incredibly good value if you want the DAC for headphones.
Here's some details about how the 105EU drove some headphones that I have to hand. This will replace the usual 'Music List', because I think it's more relevant to talk about individual headphone's performance while not specifically mentioning one track. As before, most music is listened to in lossless format, but also tested on Spotify (maximum quality). I used my main desktop PC and a laptop for these tests (all using Windows 7). Lossless files were played through Foobar 1.2.3 and WASAPI 3.2.1:
- SoundMAGIC HP200 - The HP200 were driven to very enjoyable levels across the board. There is a nice amount of bass body here for an open back headphone, which makes their presentation somewhere between the Sennheiser HD600 and HD650, at least for the low frequencies, as they get higher so does their potency though. Apart from the higher frequencies being a bit more harsh this is still a very enjoyable headphone here. The HD600 is my favourite open back headphone at the moment, so the HP200 being a close second for much less money makes them a great value high-end option. Both go really well with amplification like the 105EU.
- Beyerdynamic DT770/LE - The sound of the DT770/LE seems a little thin after listening to some other headphones in this list. It's not something I expected considering they provide some powerful bass when required, I think this is more to do with the upper ranges being a little 'spiky', but I got used to them quite quickly. On the positive side the soundstage really jumped out at me and sounded great (despite being closed). The 105EU's amplification may not be ideal to combine with the DT770/LE since their signatures are being pushed in the same (v-shaped) direction - more bass / less midrange / more treble. If, like me, you already like the DT770/LE then you will most likely still like it here. It's just that the 105EU doesn't mask the harshness of this fun headphone.
- Denon AH-D7000 - These headphones get their already powerful, deep bass pushed to even higher levels while maintaining minimal distortion here. For bass heavy Electronic music it makes a very entertaining performance! Highs are pretty laid back on the D7000 so there are no big issues, actually the highs feel just right here, they keep a healthy amount of sparkle and enjoyment even at low volumes. The 105EU is not the most smooth presentation, rather it excels with sharp detail. Soundstage performance is decent, but certainly not this combo's killer feature. For a closed back headphone the imaging is something it excels at, but it fell a little short of stunning with a variety of music (this is also true of the M-DAC).
- AKG Q701 - Lately the Q701 hadn't been providing me with enough bass for the music I was listening to, so I'd often been picking the DT880 over the Q701to provide a slightly more well rounded experience. With the 105EU however I have been hugely satisfied with the bass presentation on the Q701. The amplification signature appears to be providing more emphasis on the low frequencies here than it does with the HD650 and even the DT880. Detail is still really precise with the Q701 here, perhaps even a bit on the sharp side, but I found it an enjoyable experience.
- Beyedynamic DT880/600 - My DT880 has just been rewarded with new pads and apart from the comfort improving I noticed the sound to be rather brittle, I initially put this down to the 105EU, but after a little while the sound started to relax. It's odd because I hardly ever notice much / any burn-in with headphones, but these pads have made a really noticable difference to the sound. After a little time the DT880's provided a pleasant experience with the 105EU, not as fun, spacious or resolving as the Q701 was, but not tremendously far off or different. Volume needed to be pushed here much more than others, which were usually loud below 50%, but the Q701 required 70-80%. 90% was extremely loud still though so I don't see any problems here unless you were to try and drive some very demanding headphones, of which there aren't too many.
- V-Moda M-100 - I used a modest bass reduction EQ here and stuck to electronic and classical, but was pleasantly surprised by the performance. The M-100s are capable of a very nice sound when tweaked a little and driven by a quality source. Although I haven't been overly impressed by the M-100 / M-DAC presentation before, my impression here is more to do with better EQ rather than any difference between these two Sabre DAC sporting headphone amplifiers.
- Sennheiser HD650 - These slightly bass plump, but generally neutral headphones are nicely handled on the 105EU. Although it's not my favourite presentation for the money when dealing with the HD650 it is still a very respectable and highly enjoyable experience. Perhaps it's the neutral and well balanced nature of the Sennheisers that show up the slightly aggressive push in the 105EU's bass and treble. Being partial to big bass on occasion I am quite fond of the low frequency part of this equation, but the high end works much less often for my tastes.
As I said before, I could go on and on about the video and general features of the 105EU, but I will be concentrating on the audio aspects here, more specifically on the computer audio side, apart from it being my focus it's a big new feature for Oppo on this model.
To play music via a Windows based system you will need to install the driver - available here (also make sure you restart after installation). The up side of this is support for the USB 2.0 audio standard, which allows for audio transfer up to 24bit / 192Khz, rather than the 96Khz of standard Windows compatible audio (Mac computers do not require a driver).
Computer listening brought with it a couple of eccentricities, like having to switch to the USB input every time you turn the machine on. Although it's easiest to switch inputs using the TV screen, there is just enough feedback from the machine's LED display to get this done without turning on your big screen. The LED screen is capable of showing the sample rate it's being fed via USB, but once activated it disappears in a couple of seconds. I would have preferred this as a more permanent and default feature, rather than screaming about the video being on 'screen saver', which most often is irrelevant.
Unfortunately SACD playback is only handled by the internal DACs directly from the disc. According to Oppo's engineers it's impossible to support DSD (SACD file format) playback via USB on the 105EU. This is unfortunate because it would have added another layer of icing to the 'specification' cake for audio enthusiasts.
BUILD
Measuring 123mm high and weighing a colossal 7.9kg this a beast of a system, but every aspect of this machine is as impressive as it's dimensions are large! You'll be wowed from the moment you open the box to the point when you turn it on and play your first disc. The level of quality and polish on display here is deeply impressive! There are so many nice little touches along the way too. The packaging, the lovely box of nice cables and extras (which includes a cool wireless USB dongle), the funky re-usable Oppo bag that the player is stored in, the great styling, materials and finish of the machine itself, the high quality connections and components used throughout. I don't think that I've been quite so impressed by a product, across the board, as I was with the 105EU. I bought a DVD player from Oppo several years ago and I was very impressed by it, but not quite like this. Oppo have really honed their engineering skills over the years and they've packed in a lot of features to the 105EU.
FINAL WORDS
When I think of all the elements that this machine combines I cannot help but be overwhelmed by it and it makes a large price (£1000) seem positively value. The build quality, video and audio capabilities are worthy of that price on their own. If you are interested in the USB DAC and headphone amplifier aspects too then the BDP-105EU is an absolute no-brainer. 
Desktop PC, Dell Vosto Laptop, Audiolab M-DAC, Beyerdynamic DT880 600 Ohm, Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro Limited Edition 32 Ohm, Denon AH-D7000, Mad Dog (Fostex T50rp mod), Sennheiser HD650, SoundMAGIC HP200, Sennheiser Momentum, V-Moda M-100, AKG Q701
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