without Oppo how to setup a room for HiRes music and video

[Martin_Solo]

I need help upgrading my System.  I have a small room for TV and Music currently using a Oppo 105D, Krell S300i,  pair of Dynaudio speakers and a 1080 TV.  I listen to my HiRes music, CDs, BD Shows, Tidal, watch Netflix, Cable TV, Youtube, Personal Videos and Pictures... and  all  with the audio and video processing of the Oppo 105.  There has been some great youtube content with high quality music like this one https://youtu.be/MtuK-wiYNIw
so I want the new system to be able to play youtube with the best sound quality.

Oppo is gone and I am having a hard time finding the equipment that will allow me to do all of that, plus play 4K movies and Tidal MQA

I can find a Oppo 205 for sale,   but will need an external player for NetFlix and Youtube,  like a  Chromecast Ultra. But how well the Chromecast will sound via HDMI into the Oppo 205?  This also creates a problem, the Oppo 205 has only one HDMI In port, so I will need to get  an HDMI switch for the Cable TV and the Chromecast Ultra, which will probably make digital audio signal even worse.

The new 4K TV I will get will  have NetFlix and Youtube, but how good is the sound quality using the  HDMI ARC or Optical Audio Out????

Is there any Equipment or combination of equipment that I should consider?   

 

Martin

[esldude]

Maybe an Exasound E38 multi-channel DAC or 2nd hand E28 mkII multi-channel DAC.  I think the E38 is around $4k.  Not used one myself.  That is for sound only however, and you'll need other things for 4k movies and videos on the video side.  Might be good to pair it with the Exasound Sigma streamer.  Still not as simple a setup as the Oppo. 

[new_media]

1 hour ago, Martin_Solo said:

The new 4K TV I will get will  have NetFlix and Youtube, but how good is the sound quality using the  HDMI ARC or Optical Audio Out????

 

As far as I can tell, the highest quality audio available for that video, even at 4K, is 128 kbps AAC or 160 kbps Ogg. HDMI of Toslink should be sufficient for either.

[Martin_Solo]

how did you grab this info about this video?

All I can say is that playing this video directly from the Oppo Youtube app,  it sounds very high quality HiRes music to my years.

 

Martin 

 

[mansr]

On 6/3/2019 at 4:27 AM, Martin_Solo said:

The new 4K TV I will get will  have NetFlix and Youtube, but how good is the sound quality using the  HDMI ARC or Optical Audio Out????

HDMI ARC is an S/PDIF signal, so its quality should be close to the optical output. Either one can carry stereo 24-bit PCM or Dolby/DTS compressed surround sound. The final sound quality is mostly down to whatever is receiving this signal. An Oppo 205 should be fine in that regard.

[esldude]

3 hours ago, Martin_Solo said:

how did you grab this info about this video?

All I can say is that playing this video directly from the Oppo Youtube app,  it sounds very high quality HiRes music to my years.

 

Martin 

 

Maybe a download for that info.  Or played it via VLC where you could look at the Codec info as it plays. 

 

You can get some info by right clicking on a playing video and selecting "stats for nerds"

[Hollypoint]

I, too, use an oppo 105 as the heart of my AV system.  I was going to upgrade with a 203 just for the UHD video and keep the audio thru the 105, but too late for that.

 

What I’ve done is keep the 105 in charge of all audio, and all HD blueray and Dvd video.  I bought a new 4k UHD TV but I do not use its streaming features, its not connected to the internet, simply a monitor.  Oppo 105 feeds it video below UHD and handles all the audio.  I bought a UHD player with a dedicated hdmi audio out which goes into a preamp which switches it to the oppo hdmi input.  The hdmi audio handling on the oppo is not its best feature (see http://archimago.blogspot.com/2017/04/measurements-oppo-bdp-105-rca-xlr-hdmi.html) but its darn good.  The new UHD player also handles 4k VIDEO streaming to the TV.  The HD cable/sat audio feeds goes thru the preamp to the oppo as well.  I let the preamp switch the 2 audio hdmi feeds to the oppo hdmi input.

 

I run separate stereo amplification and speakers from the oppo stereo outs, than the amplification and speakers of the oppo multi channel outs.  So the 105 is pretty busy.

 

However, after doing all that, I’m taking the UHD player/streamer back out of the system and going back to just an HD 1080 video system. The PQ on this new TV with Oppo’s upscaling and video processing is so good, I can not tell a difference with most of the UHD sources I’ve tried, and the ones that were different were not that significant.  

 

Heresy, I know, but there it is.   I’ll be drummed out of the club.  

 

 Good luck.