OPPO 203 I2S Mod

It's called I SQUARED S and I have no idea what it stands for.

But apparently it is the native internal digital bus in cd player or dac.

Paul explains it better than I.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrRV7hAKiIQ

Now for a few years I have scratched my head wondering why I couldn't connect my cd player to an external dac via a digital interface cable. You can play it analog into line level inputs in your pre or integrated all day long and it sounds pretty good if your CD player had a decent DAC in it.

Is it copy protection? Is it bandwidth restricted? Is it both?

It is my humble opinion that nothing sounds better than SACD. But I couldn't see having a dedicated player just for SACD, So I sold my Marantz SA 8004.

Well anyways... my research led me to I2S... My pre/dac has an I2S interface but in researching the OPPO 203 I discovered that their HDMI audio output didn't support I2S.

Enter WWW.OPPOMOD.COM

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This gent over in S Korea manufactures a mod that you can install in you OPPO yourself and with an HDMI Cable you can you can send SACD to your I2S interface if your DAC has one. The PSAudio Stellar Gain Cell DAC does have one such interface.

So I ordered this OPPO 203 mod from SOKO and it arrived today. I took about 15 minutes to install (you have to cut an HDMI size hole with a dremel tool in the back panel) patched it in with the existing and cables provided at a few minutes later I am listening to SACD on an external dac.

I have listened to a couple of SACD's now and love the sound of sacd in my little system. I think you can forget how good SACD SOUNDS.

The chain is OPPO 203 I2S/HDMI to PSAudio Stellar GCD I2S Balanced ouputs to Parasound A21 balanced inputs to Usher Mini Diamond X.

So far a worthwhile expenditure. Still a little tweaking to do...

Anybody interested?

My New Year's resolution is 3840 × 2160

Family Room| Marantz AV7704| Usher Dancer Mini - 2 DMD Mains |Usher Dancer Mini-x DMD's Surrounds | Usher BE-616 DMD Center | SVS Ultra Rear Surrounds | Parasound Halo A21 | Parsound Halo A52+ | MIT Shotgun S3's | Dual SVS SB 4000 Ultras | Oppo UDP 203 | Directv Genie HD DVR | Samsung 75" Q8 QLED | PSAudio Stellar GCD | Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ | Lumin U1 Mini | HP Elite Slice PC | ROON'd for life |

ManCave: HT:Polk LSiM 706VR3 LSiM 703's LSiM 702's|| Marantz AV7002 AV PrePro Sunfire TGA-7401| Sony PS4 Pro| Sony PS4 Pro|SVS PB13 Ultra| Oppo UDP 203 | Music Hall MMF 5.3se TT w/ Soundsmith Carmen | Samsung 55" SUHD TV | Sony PS4

Patio | Polk Atrium 8's | Yamaha R-N303BL |

Office BlueSound Node| KEF LS50 | Peactree Nova 125SE |

Bedroom | Focal 905's | Chromecast Audio |

Garage | Polk Monitor 5B's

Closet Yamaha M80 | 2 Polk MP3K subs| Yaqin MC100B with Shuguang Treasures KT 88's & CV181Z's | Tesla E83CC's | Marantz 2252B | Marantz 2385 |Polk SDA SRS 2.3 | LSiM 705's |

Comments

  • verb
    verb Posts: 10,176
    Nice mod Mikey! Gotta say, took some stones to dremel out a hole in the back of the Oppo! Well done sir! :smile:
    Basement: Polk SDA SRS 1.2tl's, Cary SLP-05 Pre with ultimate upgrade,McIntosh MCD301 CD/SACD player, Northstar Designs Excelsio DAC, Cambridge 851N streamer, McIntosh MC300 Amp, Silnote Morpheus Ref2, Series2 Digital Cables, Silnote Morpheus Ref2 Series2 XLR's, Furman 15PFi Power Conditioner, Pangea Power Cables, MIT Shotgun S3 IC's, MIT Shotgun S1 Bi-Wire speaker cables
    Office: PC, EAR Acute CD Player, EAR 834L Pre, Northstar Designs Intenso DAC, Antique Sound Labs AV8 Monoblocks, Denon UDR-F10 Cassette, Acoustic Technologies Classic FR Speakers, SVS SB12 Plus sub, MIT AVt2 speaker cables, IFI Purifier2, AQ Cinnamon USB cable, Groneberg Quatro Reference IC's
    Spare Room: Dayens Ampino Integrated Amp, Tjoeb 99 tube CD player (modified Marantz CD-38), Analysis Plus Oval 9's, Zu Jumpers, AudioEngine B1 Streamer, Klipsch RB-61 v2, SVS PB1000 sub, Blue Jeans RCA IC's, Shunyata Hydra 8 Power Conditioner
    Living Room: Peachtree Nova Integrated, Cambridge CXN v2 Streamer, Rotel RCD-1072 CD player, Furman 15PFi Power Conditioner, Polk RT265 In Wall Speakers, Polk DSW Pro 660wi sub
    Garage #1: Cambridge Audio 640A Integrated Amp, Project Box-E BT Streamer, Polk Tsi200 Bookies, Douglas Speaker Cables, Shunyata Power Conditioner
    Garage #2: Cambridge Audio EVO150 Integrated Amplifier, Polk L200's, Analysis Plus Silver Oval 2 Speaker Cables, IC's TBD.
  • Mikey081057
    Mikey081057 Posts: 7,127
    edited March 2019
    So the back is vented and you just have to cut 3 little slats of the vent out.... tape it off and just one minute ....
    My New Year's resolution is 3840 × 2160

    Family Room| Marantz AV7704| Usher Dancer Mini - 2 DMD Mains |Usher Dancer Mini-x DMD's Surrounds | Usher BE-616 DMD Center | SVS Ultra Rear Surrounds | Parasound Halo A21 | Parsound Halo A52+ | MIT Shotgun S3's | Dual SVS SB 4000 Ultras | Oppo UDP 203 | Directv Genie HD DVR | Samsung 75" Q8 QLED | PSAudio Stellar GCD | Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ | Lumin U1 Mini | HP Elite Slice PC | ROON'd for life |

    ManCave: HT:Polk LSiM 706VR3 LSiM 703's LSiM 702's|| Marantz AV7002 AV PrePro Sunfire TGA-7401| Sony PS4 Pro| Sony PS4 Pro|SVS PB13 Ultra| Oppo UDP 203 | Music Hall MMF 5.3se TT w/ Soundsmith Carmen | Samsung 55" SUHD TV | Sony PS4

    Patio | Polk Atrium 8's | Yamaha R-N303BL |

    Office BlueSound Node| KEF LS50 | Peactree Nova 125SE |

    Bedroom | Focal 905's | Chromecast Audio |

    Garage | Polk Monitor 5B's

    Closet Yamaha M80 | 2 Polk MP3K subs| Yaqin MC100B with Shuguang Treasures KT 88's & CV181Z's | Tesla E83CC's | Marantz 2252B | Marantz 2385 |Polk SDA SRS 2.3 | LSiM 705's |
  • Mr_Hz
    Mr_Hz Posts: 176
    edited March 2019
    Back in the day I did some mods on my Oppo 105D with OppoMods out of S Korea. The guy is legit. There was a tad bit of ESL dissemination in emails back and forth, but I saw video improvements in his mods, but couldn't quantify musical improvements in the better timing provided. I chose him as a 'cost savings alternative' to Modwright, tho Modwright is on an entirely different plain as far as musical improvements with their tube mods.
    2.3TL's - Living Room
    CRS+'s (4.1 TL's) - Office
    SDA1C's - Famdamly Rm
    SDA1C's - Master Bedroom
  • Mike Reeter
    Mike Reeter Posts: 4,314
    Yes, I'm interested in this Mod. I have the OPPO 203 and a PS Audio DAC. I will be making the transition one day...

  • Mikey081057
    Mikey081057 Posts: 7,127
    I spent some time with this Friday evening and decided to throw a 4K Blu ray disk in and test the rest of the system.

    A strange issue came about whereas when playing a video... the video out put would blank out any time the screen changed from a menu to the movie part of the the vid. The only way to recover from this to continue viewing was to turn off the AVP and restart it. once the vid was playing everything was fine. The tv would tell me that their was nothing connected but you heard the audio thru the AVP but there seemed to be no video being sent to the tv.

    Now I didn't change anything except add the new board and an HDMI connection to the PSA SGCD. Everything audio wise was fine. So first thing I did was remove the cover and checked and re-seated the ribbon cables. I reconnected and still the same no video.

    After checking all the settings between the AVP, TV and the UDP I decided to change the hdmi input on the tv. I was plugged into HDMI 3 which on this set was actually ARC HDMI port. After re-configuring to HDMI 1... everything works fine. I don't need ARC anyway.

    Scratch my head and back to enjoying.
    My New Year's resolution is 3840 × 2160

    Family Room| Marantz AV7704| Usher Dancer Mini - 2 DMD Mains |Usher Dancer Mini-x DMD's Surrounds | Usher BE-616 DMD Center | SVS Ultra Rear Surrounds | Parasound Halo A21 | Parsound Halo A52+ | MIT Shotgun S3's | Dual SVS SB 4000 Ultras | Oppo UDP 203 | Directv Genie HD DVR | Samsung 75" Q8 QLED | PSAudio Stellar GCD | Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ | Lumin U1 Mini | HP Elite Slice PC | ROON'd for life |

    ManCave: HT:Polk LSiM 706VR3 LSiM 703's LSiM 702's|| Marantz AV7002 AV PrePro Sunfire TGA-7401| Sony PS4 Pro| Sony PS4 Pro|SVS PB13 Ultra| Oppo UDP 203 | Music Hall MMF 5.3se TT w/ Soundsmith Carmen | Samsung 55" SUHD TV | Sony PS4

    Patio | Polk Atrium 8's | Yamaha R-N303BL |

    Office BlueSound Node| KEF LS50 | Peactree Nova 125SE |

    Bedroom | Focal 905's | Chromecast Audio |

    Garage | Polk Monitor 5B's

    Closet Yamaha M80 | 2 Polk MP3K subs| Yaqin MC100B with Shuguang Treasures KT 88's & CV181Z's | Tesla E83CC's | Marantz 2252B | Marantz 2385 |Polk SDA SRS 2.3 | LSiM 705's |
  • honestaquarian
    honestaquarian Posts: 3,186
    The ARC port on the tv would be for sending audio from one of the apps on the smart tv or from it’s tuner back through the hdmi cable to your ave. Is the Oppo hdmi cable carrying the video signal going to the avr and then out to the tv? Or is it going straight to the tv?
  • Mikey081057
    Mikey081057 Posts: 7,127
    All hdmi sources go to the AVP.... except for the oppo I2S output that goes to the 2 channel pre. all is resolved now as I don't use tv sources on this setup.
    My New Year's resolution is 3840 × 2160

    Family Room| Marantz AV7704| Usher Dancer Mini - 2 DMD Mains |Usher Dancer Mini-x DMD's Surrounds | Usher BE-616 DMD Center | SVS Ultra Rear Surrounds | Parasound Halo A21 | Parsound Halo A52+ | MIT Shotgun S3's | Dual SVS SB 4000 Ultras | Oppo UDP 203 | Directv Genie HD DVR | Samsung 75" Q8 QLED | PSAudio Stellar GCD | Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ | Lumin U1 Mini | HP Elite Slice PC | ROON'd for life |

    ManCave: HT:Polk LSiM 706VR3 LSiM 703's LSiM 702's|| Marantz AV7002 AV PrePro Sunfire TGA-7401| Sony PS4 Pro| Sony PS4 Pro|SVS PB13 Ultra| Oppo UDP 203 | Music Hall MMF 5.3se TT w/ Soundsmith Carmen | Samsung 55" SUHD TV | Sony PS4

    Patio | Polk Atrium 8's | Yamaha R-N303BL |

    Office BlueSound Node| KEF LS50 | Peactree Nova 125SE |

    Bedroom | Focal 905's | Chromecast Audio |

    Garage | Polk Monitor 5B's

    Closet Yamaha M80 | 2 Polk MP3K subs| Yaqin MC100B with Shuguang Treasures KT 88's & CV181Z's | Tesla E83CC's | Marantz 2252B | Marantz 2385 |Polk SDA SRS 2.3 | LSiM 705's |
  • SCompRacer
    SCompRacer Posts: 8,350
    https://forum.polkaudio.com/discussion/169370/sonore-usb-to-i2s-interface

    The basics, SPDIF, clock is integrated in signal and DAC must sort it out. Some DAC chips do a better job than others. ESS Sabre has patent for the way they did it.

    I2S, clock separate. Some DAC chips sound much better with I2S. Must keep circuits short for best results.

    DSD uses same circuit as I2S, except instead of word clock, bit clock and data, you have right channel, left channel and clock.
    Salk SoundScape 8's * Audio Research Reference 3 * Bottlehead Eros Phono * Park's Audio Budgie SUT * Krell KSA-250 * Harmonic Technology Pro 9+ * Signature Series Sonore Music Server w/Deux PS * Roon * Gustard R26 DAC / Singxer SU-6 DDC * Heavy Plinth Lenco L75 Idler Drive * AA MG-1 Linear Air Bearing Arm * AT33PTG/II & Denon 103R * Richard Gray 600S * NHT B-12d subs * GIK Acoustic Treatments * Sennheiser HD650 *