Thinking of the Oppo 105 with Modwright mods

[RoyMercer]

Forgot to mention that I liked the Modright 95 so well that I did not think it could get much better. I was wrong... The Modwright 105 IS better.

[HedgeHog]

Originally Posted by JJinID

Hedwig - thanks for sharing your impressions. I still intend to try out the PSVANE 6SN7s along with a Create Audio rectifier tube in mine. As far as the highs go, in my system the MW105 was very bright for the first 100 hours, and then finally settled down and smoothed out after 150. My previous MW95 was much better balanced at first until the 105 finished breaking in. I didn't try a stock 105 in my system, but I did directly compare stock and modified 95s and the highs on the MW95 were more extended and better resolved. Perhaps with some more break in time, and trying things out in your other system will give you some more data. Please keep us posted...

Funny thing is that mine is very mid range sounding...no high frequency harshness. I don't know what good tube hifi sounds like but this was not my perception of it. It's definitely smooth. Dan finished mine quicker than expected so he was running it in his showroom for close to a week. And since I was too busy to get it, Kristin ran it over the weekend before shipping it the following Monday. And I've been playing it for 2 weeks...so I'm sure there's more than 100 hours on the capacitors (apparently, the things that require burn in most).

I'm waiting for that "extended range" sound...it very compressed/mid-fi sounding to me, atm.

Originally Posted by RoyMercer

When I first got my Modwright 95, I was not happy. It was not until I treated my room did I fall in love with the Modwright. The Modwright is so good, it made my crappy room sound much worse. After properly treating my room, no player / source I have tried even comes close. The other thing was playing good recordings. Playing a poorly recorded CD on a Modwright Oppo equals more poorly sound, because it's so good! Blue ray's sounded awesome:

“Garbage in garbage out. The great majority of readily available 2-channel material is barely fit for a Bose system. Unless you have a nice library of well recorded material, horns will overwhelm you with their unforgiving nature. Horns force you to seek out good recordings, and it can be a frustrating process. If DVDs and Blu-rays are knocking you out of your seat (and I highly suggest getting some good DVD and Blu-ray concert discs) -- that's the only indicator you need -- it's not the source components, room, or speakers. “

While I admit I don't own a fancy system and I'm not sure what qualifies as great content, I think the stuff I've been playing should be telltale enough. They sure were on the stock 105.

For the record, my current gear (and I'll be uber specific) is:

ModWright Oppo BDP-105 (HiFi Tuning Supreme fuse and EML 5U4G in PS9.9, PSVANE CV-181-T II/Sophia Electric 6SN7 in player) - PS on tiptoes, player on Nordost Sort Kones (Brass) -> Belden XLR -> Pathos Classic One Mk III (Siemens 7308 tubes and Telefunken 6922 tubes, all fuses replaced with HiFi Tuning Supreme and a couple of WA Quantum chips somewhere - on tip toes) -> Mundorf 1.0mm gold/silver wire in dual run config -> Evolution Acoustic mmMicroOne speakers (with WA Quantum speaker chips at back).


The music have been plenty but the ones I've been focusing on are:

Tsuyoshi Yamamoto - Autumn in Seattle (UHD CD)
Tsuyoshi Yamamoto - Midnight Sugar (SACD)
Salvatore Accardo - Diabolus in Musica (K2HD CD)
Oscar Peterson - We Get Request (SACD)
Fleetwood Mac - Rumors (SHM-SACD)
Dave Grusin - Discovered Again (XRCD24)

My observations are that the Yamamoto disc's piano sounded less alive. The decay seems to be rounded off. And the details of his foot stamping was not noticeable.

On the Oscar Peterson track - You Look Good to Me - during the intro I used to hear clearly, Ray Brown putting his bow down then plucking the bass while singing the notes. It's more subdued currently.

On Fleetwood Mac's Never Going Back Again, the guitar is less acoustic sounding.

For the Paganini disc, the violins are lovely but (I think it's) the second track's triangle/bell, it just doesn't hang and float as it used to.


I'm going to try putting the stock 95 in and compare. Then I'll move the MW 105 over to my other room where I have treatment and a brighter sounding setup to see if it improves.

I'm not disappointed at the mod, it still good but I wonder if it's worth all the dollar it costs (I also did the Bybee and Audio Magic add-on plus all those tubes).

Cheers...will report again later on.

[RoyMercer]

Please do keep us posted. Something does not sound right (no pun intended). Do you have any NOS / older 6SN7's to try? For the money, I would throw in a pair of Sylvania Chrome tops's for comparison. Not the best sounding tube but they bring out the top end and in some ways, I think they sound better than any current production tubes. Even better are the tall bottle 3 hole bottom getter flashing black T plates. The 6SN7GTA chrome tops can be had for pretty cheap (or they used to). If you can't find any for cheap, let me know and I will give you a pair. The Sylvania short bottle chrome tops were my first taste of NOS tubes and I have plenty that I am not using.

Are you sure you are using the tube stereo pair? Do you have your front two speakers set to large and the distance (phase) equal on both L / R? I don't doubt your set up - just trying to think of something that may have been overlooked. My initial MW-105 experience was right along the lines of how JJinID described it.

[HedgeHog]

Originally Posted by RoyMercer

Please do keep us posted. Something does not sound right (no pun intended). Do you have any NOS / older 6SN7's to try? For the money, I would throw in a pair of Sylvania Chrome tops's for comparison. Not the best sounding tube but they bring out the top end and in some ways, I think they sound better than any current production tubes. Even better are the tall bottle 3 hole bottom getter flashing black T plates. The 6SN7GTA chrome tops can be had for pretty cheap (or they used to). If you can't find any for cheap, let me know and I will give you a pair. The Sylvania short bottle chrome tops were my first taste of NOS tubes and I have plenty that I am not using.

Are you sure you are using the tube stereo pair? Do you have your front two speakers set to large and the distance (phase) equal on both L / R? I don't doubt your set up - just trying to think of something that may have been overlooked. My initial MW-105 experience was right along the lines of how JJinID described it.

Hi Roy,

Thx for the kind offer but I'll look for a pair of NOS tubes down the road. Still gotta order the TS NOS 6F8G to try. I'm using XLR out so it's the dedicated stereo pair so I don't know if speaker size/bass management affects it. Also, if the unit got switch to small (I had it on large/full when I shipped it), it would be more treble and less bass...I'm experiencing the opposite.

I've re-read Srajen's review (on 6moons) and he actually hit on some of what I am hearing.

So for sXXXs-n-giggles, I swapped the stock 95 back in. I think it's clearer sounding. But, for sure, the MW unit attenuates the output significantly. I used an SPL meter and to get similar volume levels, I had to up my Pathos to 60 (the 95 had it on 50). I tried to do a couple of vid grabs but even with 1080p on YTube, they sound quite similar online. It's not as similar live.

[ame="http://youtu.be/Lsiiff-nfWY"]Stock Oppo BDP-95[/ame]

[ame="http://youtu.be/_59-qta33KU"]ModWright Oppo BDP-105[/ame]

Gonna move it to the bigger system and see how the MW behaves.

[Jeffy]

Srajen's review is way off the mark. I very seldom agree with his reviews. Something must be wrong in your system because I never heard a Modright player sound rolled on the top. I compared the 105 to the 16,000.00 Playback Designs and the Modright won in every category.

[RoyMercer]

I don't think setting to small will provide any more or less treble but would definitely change the entire music presentation. Your audio settings WILL effect either of your two channel outputs. I listened to your videos but need to go back and listen again.

If you are referring to the Tung-Sol black glass round plates, I have a NOS quad in their OEM box's and a pair that have 5 hours at most. I am only holding on to them because I paid too much and hope in the future I will at least make my money back. I did not like them as they deliver more of the type of sound you are describing - they roll the top end too much. I really think you will find the answer to your problems through tubes. I can't tell you what my Modwright 105 sounds like with stock tubes because the first thing I did is put them in a box for storage. I hate to throw them away but I know that I will never use them. The only new production 6SN7's tubes I remotely liked in my BDP-95 were the Sophia's. I never did get a chance to hear my 105 stock but I had my 95 for several months before sending it to Modwright. For music, I hated the 95 stock. My Jolida JD-100 was my other source and to me sounded night and day better.

[djwhog]

In my opionion is most all gear I had been adble own and hear the Sophia's and other tubes such as the Princess are very sweet tubes, powerfull, quick, bright, open and not harsh. Something to me just does not seem right, but I do trust your reviews to date.

hope it gets better.

I can tell you that in my Woo amp it was night to day even without much warm up or any break in, these tubes just shinned. And yes became much better with time, but out of the box .... well good luck

[HedgeHog]

Originally Posted by RoyMercer

If you are referring to the Tung-Sol black glass round plates, I have a NOS quad in their OEM box's and a pair that have 5 hours at most. I am only holding on to them because I paid too much and hope in the future I will at least make my money back. I did not like them as they deliver more of the type of sound you are describing - they roll the top end too much. I really think you will find the answer to your problems through tubes.

Are these the tubes you are referring to, if so, what do you want for the pair?




I kept playing music to see how each one sounds...it's lacking impact. No punch...very filtered and mid-boosted (to my ears). It's not horrible but it's not very high end sounding.

But funny enough, I popped in the Jazz at the Pawnshop SACD and it sounds incredible. It used to sound very thin and not involving. But in the MW 105, it's very full. You can feel the crowd in the venue. I thought maybe the unit has hit a burn-in threshold so I played the new San Fran Symphony (Michael Tilson Thomas) - Beethoven Symphony No. 9 (SACD). Well, compressed, boxed, not very dynamic. When the timpanies hit, it was "flubby".

Tomorrow, this goes on the other system and see.

If there is something wrong, this will suck big time since I'm north of the border.

Something else is happening...I am getting oily smudges on the discs after playing. I know the disc drive is in its own casing and Dan doesn't touch the drive. I've never had this on any discs before but I can see it clearly on discs I've played on the modded player. Comments from Dan seems to imply it's not his problem.

[RoyMercer]

Something is dead wrong. The Modwright 105 has more impact and low end than even the Modwright 95 and it did well on the low end. This was the first thing I noticed the moment I heard my M/105. You should send it back to Dan to have him look at it. I don't believe that he will not at least take a look since you seem to have multiple problems. Dan bent over backwards to help me and the end result was nothing to do with the player or mod. Not sure were you live will make much difference other than it might take a few extra days in shipping. I will probably sell the one pair for $100 if they test NOS as I expect they will, but I will need to test them on my Maxi first. I have not had them out for about a year. They are the same tubes. They sound better than any new production, but I really don't think you will be happy with them in your case. If your unit has a problem from the factory, it won't be Dan's problem but I bet he will work with you. Oppo was quit clear I would void any and all warranties with an automated reply that was flagged by using Modwright as a ship to address.

[HedgeHog]

I'm suspecting something is wrong. This is not a new unit from Oppo as I've owned and used it since its release last year (I think it was last year). Everything was working fine and I could tell the improvement it had over my stock 95. I really don't suspect anything is wrong with the unit.

I'm located in Canada so having the unit go across the border is a huge PITA. It took forever to get it down to Dan (he's actually very close to me in the Pacific Northwest...just the thin red line separating us, really). But I know customs AND the carrier (UPS or FedEx) will hose me going back and forth. After spending $3K+ on the mods and extra tubes, not including the unit itself, I really don't want to go through the hassle of this back and forth. My greatest concern is that Dan will hear it and proclaim it being fine. It's not like I can return the mods.

Tomorrow I will hook it up to my other system where I can compare the mod to HDMI out, where my pre/pro can do the conversion. I recall how the stock 105 compared with the pre/pro so I can figure out if it's me or something is wrong.

As per the video, I hooked up the 95 back to the same system and it sounds the same or better. It shouldn't.

Thx for hearing me out....cheers.