I have seen recently on Audiogon and eBay that the Oppo Upscaling DVD players, the DV-980H and DV-981H especially, sell used for more than they cost new.

Why would that be? I'm just curious. Does anyone have an explanation for this? Usually discontinued or to-be-discontinued products drop in price...

It's an unusual trend that I frankly can't explain. I might understand selling for close to the original retail price (especially the 980H), but I recently decided to sell off my 981HD on Amazon.com Marketplace because it was not being used and I was able to sell it for $299 (about $70 more than the original price).

The 983H selling for full retail or more I can almost understand - it's a really good universal DVD player and can be made region-free in a few seconds with just the remote control. The 980H and 981HD are good players, but neither was quite as remarkable as the 983H (the 981HD uses the Faroudja chip, which was starting to be a bit old when OPPO started offering players with it about five years ago, and the 980H uses the Mediatek chip for scaling and deinterlacing duties). Both can also be made region-free, both have proven pretty reliable, and both have been well-supported by OPPO Digital over the years. I suspect some of it has to do with the popularity of the BDP-83, but I really can't explain it.

Well, I thought that there might be some hack available to make them dispense beer or something.

But now I more tend to believe it's some sort of stampede. $299 for a 981H when there are bluray players out there for less? Not to mention Oppo's own that for $200 more is head and shoulders over the 981?

I wonder how Oppo might be looking at this phenomenon now that they've discontinued them. They might have been able to make some more sells...

It's bizarre - I was surprised a month ago to discover that used 981HD's were still selling for full retail price, but couldn't get to the box until a week and a half ago. By then, the Amazon offers ranged from $500 to $700 for used or new 981HD's. I have no idea who would be buying at those prices. Amazon had the original retail price set at $299, though, so I offered mine for that and sold it in two days. It's likely to taper off once the new lower-cost BLu-ray player arrives in the next week or two.

I suspect that whatever stock of 980H's and 981HD's they have left are held back for warranty support.

Wow, the prices on Amazon make my head spin. I have mine (980H) on eBay as we speak. Not so sure how well I'll fare, but I have no regrets, the bid is almost at my original purchasing price and there is plenty of time left. The recent ones sold for around $200, thus I'm a bit late in the game.

But you're mentioning Oppo's new offering for a cheaper unit? As usual I have no idea. Could you, please, elaborate a bit? I was thinking of a BP-83, but a lite version, with not so good an analog audio stage would make perfect sense for me, as I have a separate setup for music. Do you have some info you could share, please?

There's no information available yet - just an announcement from OPPO that they will be revealing a new lower-cost Blu-ray player soon. They made an announcement on Facebook and Twitter a little over a week ago and suggested that the announcement would come within a couple of weeks, so we are likely to hear something soon.

Looks like "early January" might turn into "late January" if January at all...
My 980H found a new home and now I'm not sure whether I should go for the BDP-83 or wait for the new one, for I'm not all that interested in a stellar analog section, if this is where the cheaper one will lack.
Is there any hint, anywhere that you know of, as to what the features set of the new player will be?

Thank you very much,
Alex

The closest thing to an official summary of features has been an analogy offered by OPPO to several people. They have said that it will be similar to a 980H with Blu-ray support. As you know (since you had one), the 980H had DVD-Audio, SACD, and a 7.1 analog output based on some widely-used Cirrus DAC's (not the top-of-the-line Cirrus DAC's found in the BDP-83). It also used the Mediatek chipset for video processing rather than a separate processor like the Faroudja or the ABT2010. There's still no specifics, but it's the best we've got for now.

I bought a used 980H six months ago for $125 (eBay) and use it exclusively for CD / SACD / DVD-A playback through its HDMI output - connected to my Onkyo 886. In the case of SACD this allows me to send a DSD signal direct to the 886.

While I bought it purely as a convenience item to play SACD and DVD-A (replacing a Denon 2200) quite unexpectedly (I must admit) this did result in a noticeable (although not dramatic) improvement in sound compared to using the 2200's analog outputs / 886 analog inputs. I think the fewer A/D conversions were likely the reason. Increased "clarity" with multichannel SACDs, especially in the surround channels, is how I would best describe the improvement.

It is probably the first time ever, after using countless pieces of gear, that I have noticed such a difference between analog and digital signal paths.

It now has me convinced that a digital source and purely digital signal path (as much as possible) is the only way to achieve the highest sound fidelity possible.

Keeping the signal in the digital domain as far into the process as possible is almost an article of faith, but isn't it possible that at least part of what your hearing is the diffrence in the DACs?

While anything is possible, I doubt it. I'm not so cursed as to be able to distinguish between different DACs anyhow. As I said, I never expected to hear a difference in the first place. The likelihood that it was the fewer A/D conversions is far greater than any possible difference between DACs. And again this was not a big difference that I hear; noticeable but very subtle, manifested almost entirely in the surround channels.

I wouldn't be so quick to discount the possibility you heard the differences in the DACs. I didn't think I was "cursed" either until recently when I compared CD playback on my BDP-83 ==>990 via coax to the BDP-83==>Cambridge Audio DacMagic via coax ==>990 analog inputs. Assuming the 990 does not do some weird thing internally (with A/D/A conversion) there was a difference between the 990 DAC and the DacMagic. Of course the number A/D conversions could be far more significant to the difference you heard. FYI I have a spare 980H that I'm going to use as a transport with the DacMagic in a separate stereo system. IMO, OPPO makes great products.

Definitely Oppo's products' quality was a deciding factor for me when I purchased my first Oppo, the DV-980H.
Now I'm waiting for a BDP-83. I was inclined to wait an see what the new, lower cost, product would be, but Gonk made me pull the trigger when he said that the new one would be the 980H with BluRay support.
I liked the 980, but it was not as good as the 981 which was not as good as 983. This with regard to video performance.
I'm not that interested in the audio performance of the DBP-83 for I have a dedicated music system based on Dell/Benchmark/Musical Fidelity separates.
I can say that the 990, which I'm using only for HT, has fine DAC's inside and a good analog stage, but doesn't match up with the Benchmark/Musical Fidelity combo, not that it should, considering the difference in price and market segment.
So I can definitely say that DAC's and analog stages make a word of difference.
Of course, that's only my opinion...

We're still theorizing, of course - OPPO has provided that example to a couple people, but we don't know how the video performance will stack up. The new player certainly won't be using the same Mediatek chip that drove the 980H (since it isn't BD-compatible), but will instead presumably be using the Mediatek chip found in the BDP-83. I doubt that it will perform worse than the 980H for DVD upscaling, but there's no way yet to know if it will perform better. That being said, it would seem reasonable to say that a 980H-style BD player will not be equal to the BDP-83's ABT2010 video processor...

You may be more interested in the audio performance than you realize. For lossless audio from Blu-ray (as with SACD and DVD-Audio), you will need to rely on the multichannel analog output. I doubt that it will be the equal of a Benchmark/Music Fidelity combo (that's a lot of oomph dedicated solely to stereo D/A conversion), but it will compare well with the 990 when you need it for multichannel discs.

Well, the reason I said I'm not all that interested in the analog output is that my HT setup is not suited for music. I have Axiom W2 "on wall/in-wall hybrid" speakers for fronts, Axiom W100 for center and orbs for rear surrounds. Not exactly HiFi speakers. More than decent for HT, though.
The music system voices via Sonus Faber Concerto Domus, floor standers, waaaaay better stuff located in an other room.
Probably I'll feed the 990 from the BDP-83 via coax, thus pure Dolby, no true HD and all that. True, at some point might go for a set of BJ analog interconnects and feed the 990 via analog from the BD-83, but then the A/D/A bug will hit me (I have small fronts). I won't probably benefit all that much from True HD format going this way...
Am I wrong in this, you think?

I think that you probably are underestimating the value of lossless formats (TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio, etc.) and the A/D/A "bug" is really quite transparent. My Model 990/BDP-83 setup guide goes through my suggestions for pairing these two, in case you haven't seen it.

Thank you, Gonk. Priceless advice, as usual.

I still have my theoretical doubts about the transparency of the A/D/A path 990 will employ, especially with high definition sources. Converting to digital and then back to analog is done at what sampling rate and word depth? For if it's the red book spec of 44.1/16, then the superiority of the HD audio formats will be annulled and the sound won't be better than red book CD even with stellar conversion, which I doubt.
It will be better than the compressed Dolby, true, but still not all that it could be had the 990's analog path staid pure and the bass management been left to the Oppo, to be done in the digital domain.
As always, "I reserve the right to be wrong"

I still suspect that you would be well served to give it a try at some point. It is a balancing act: more "cluttered" signal path with lossless audio vs a digital path with the lossy core track. As for the 990's ADC, I know it is better than 44.1/16bit. I think it is 96k/24bit. It is on the 990's web page (which I would check if I weren't on an iPhone right now).

We are in agreement that even through the A/D/A the end result will be better than the compressed Dolby. I didn't doubt this one.

Yes, the web page states 192/24, thus A/D/A path has, at least in theory, the potential of being transparent.

I initially started my HT system around the 1070. I am an audiophile, not a videophile, thus I thought that what I have will be enough for movies. The speakers were selected based on the same "lesser requirements". Now I'm not so sure that my thinking was all that good, but "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
When I moved from the 1070 to the 990/7100 I started seeing why some people have their 990 at the center of their entertainment center. It's a very good all-round performer and I even thought that Outlaw almost hurt themselves by setting such a high standard for their future processors in the price range their operate.
Thus, yes, I'll give the analog path a try when connected to the BDP-83. A set of 6 BJ interconnects will be only $100, not too bad when compared with the $65 Apogee digital interconnect I now have in place with very good results.