Choices: Oppo DV-980H, or Denon DVD-1940CI (1 Viewer)

[Edwin_D]

I am planning to purchase an upconverting DVD player in the near future, as I begin to transition from SD home theater to HD home theater. I can get the Denon 1940 for a little less than the Oppo 980. I know the reviews of the audio quality of the Oppo have been very favorable. My new player will probably be used 60% of the time for audio, 40% of the time for movies. I have a reasonable receiver/speaker setup, which I also intend to upgrade over the next year. Which player would you go with, and why? I would particularly like to hear from those who own one of the two players.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I am not familiar with the Denon, but I do own an Oppo 980. I use the player for SD-DVD Video and DVD-Audio playback -- I am still using a Sony ES SACD/CD player for redbook CD and SACD playback.

The Oppo provides excellent video quality, IMO, when upconverting to 1080p. I prefer the Oppo over my Sony BDP-S350 blu-ray player for upconverting SD-DVD, and the video quality is a big improvement over my previous Panasonic RP-91 480p DVD player. The Oppo handles 4x3 material properly, placing black side bars on the screen to retain proper aspect ratio of the source material. The only thing I find disappointing is the Oppo's zoom mode for displaying non-anamorphic widescreen SD-DVD's -- it's pretty useless. However, I only have a few such titles remaining in my collection, and my Samsung 1080p display's zoom mode has to suffice for these few titles.

DVD-Audio playback sounds excellent via HDMI to my Pioneer Elite 94-TXH receiver.

The Oppo also plays back several PC media types, and has a very convenient front USB port for loading such media. The only one I have tried, though, is viewing jpeg images from my dSLR camera. The Oppo does a fine job with this.

 

[Alon Goldberg]

I own an Oppo 983 and auditioned a number of CD/DVD Players before making this purchase. Here are my thoughts

- I've auditioned the Denon 1930 (previous model), and found that earlier Oppo's beat her hands down for video quality. Overall for Denon, I wasn't terribly impressed with the quality of their DVD Players until auditioning the 2930/3930, especially for audio

- Do you plan on using the digital outs or the analogue outs on the DVD Player for audio playback? If using the digital outputs, then your AV Receiver will be performing the D/A Conversion, so the analogue performance is really insignificant

- I use the analogue outputs on my Oppo 983, and haven't been terribly impressed. But this is because I have a number of very high quality sources in my system (Naim CD5x, Squeezebox Duet and Rega Planar 3 turntable). That being said, for this price category I haven't heard any DVD Players that outperform the Oppo for analogue audio

- For the money, you may still want to consider a Blu-Ray Player. But if your choices are between the Oppo and the Denon I would choose the Oppo

Cheers,
Alon

 

[Phil A]

I have a 980 in the bedroom system and very high end equipment in the main system. For $170, it's very hard to find fault with the Oppo about anything. It's video is excellent (I have a 42 inch LCD in the bedroom) and the passing of DSD (via HDMI or even PCM via HDMI) to my Marantz 6300 rec'r is also very. I'm not even sure if Denon really makes the 1940. I believe the old 1930 (or the model before it) was actually made by Funai. For a while I had the 980 paired with my outboard DAC (which I used in the main system at one point then went to the basement system, then to the bedroom system and is now back in the basement system) and it was decent as a transport. I also was not impressed the the analog outs on my Oppo 980. When I had the Oppo in the bedroom system, I had my Sony 2000ES CD/SACD changer next to it and the Sony was better via the analog outs on CD and SACD and was a better transport. If just a choice between the Denon and Oppo, I too would also choose the Oppo.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I am still using my Sony 555ES CD/SACD carousel player, too, because I prefer it's analog outputs for redbook CD and SACD. With the Oppo, I am only using the HDMI output. My Pioneer Elite receiver supports DSD, which is a plus for the DVD-Audio capability of the Oppo.

 

[Jim*Tod]

I have had the Oppo 980 since October for a 40 inch Toshiba LCD and its upconversion to 1080p is remarkable. Denon would never have fit in my limited budget, but I cannot imagine it being better.