November 20, 2025
#526
Gentle reader,
I last wrote to you about receiving a fine gift of excellent audio equipment from our next-door neighbor, Jack. This article is Part One of Two about how I have incorporated that equipment and more into our musical reproduction world. If you missed that article, you can see it here: The Robb Collections: Having Friends Who Are Neighbors is a Wonderful Thing! Gifted Klipsch Speakers And More.
While we have had a Blu-ray player for a number of years, I have never had one which can play Super Audio Compact Discs, SACDs for short. It was back in 2012 when I added a complete SONY SACD system to the listening room. Doing so made for complete chaos! Read about that here: The Robb Collections: NEW Massive Changes! SIX-Channel SACD at last!
This image is from 2023 when I played my first Blu-ray Audio disc which contains all ten of Gustav Mahler's symphonies. If you are a longtime reader, you might recognize my the-only-ones-in-the-world highly modified Realistic Minimus 7W speakers. They are now serving as the surround speakers behind our chairs.
All that remains original is the cabinets and speaker grilles. Visible are the super-rare woven Kevlar woofer and metal ribbon tweeter which replaced the factory parts. 
I decided that since I have some fantastic Klipsch speakers to enjoy, that it was time to upgrade to a Blu-ray player for use in the living room which also supports and plays SACD and HDCD discs. I chose to look for an OPPO unit via eBay. I found a good deal at $209.00 on an OPPO BDP-93 which also plays 3-D discs. We have no interest in that technology, however. 
I have found and tried several brands of "universal player" digital disc players over the years. Aside from the SONY audio-only players, they were all also DVD players. I had found that OPPO players sounded best to me. I still enjoy a DV-980H in the listening room. 
To fully test all of the free equipment, I set them all up in the listening room in front of the record cabinet between the front speakers. I bought a ten-foot long Coaxial Digital RCA cable and the same length Toslink Optical Digital cable and used the OPPO DVD player as a digital source. 
These photos are before I set it all up. I used the Klipsch speakers for front and center and my Tannoy C-88 towers for the rear. I loaded Forrest Gump into the OPPO DV-980H player.
I did not make any photographs of the testing and setup. Those green things at the bottom of this photo are my Adidas pants-clad knees.
Since Worlds Best Cables are exclusively what I use, I bought three pairs of their WBC|PRO RCA cables at $38.95 a pair. 
The XLR cables I bought from them are also of the PRO variety. Nowhere on any of their PRO cables do I see signal directional arrows or tags, such as those seen below.
If you are curious what those blue cables are, they are Liberty Cable Z-300 audio cables. Liberty Cable is a US company. I was able to buy many of them "previously enjoyed" from a professional audio installer. Since he was dealing with wealthy clients they always wanted all new equipment. Thus, they were a small fraction of their retail price. Plus, if there is anything to what WBC insists that we buyer do, they were definitely "burned in".
"2.5 Foot RCA Cable Pair - WBC-PRO-LOCAP Low-Capacitance (14pF/ft) 22 AWG Ultra-Silent Audiophile & Professional-Grade Audio Interconnect Cable with Amphenol ACPR Gold RCA Plugs & Black Tweed Jacket"
Every time I get an new-to-me component, I do a comparison, visually, between the current unit and the new one.
I bought the SONY STR-DA5ES for ten dollars from Goodwill. It included the manual and remote control. It was marked: "No Sound $10." I noticed that the speaker switch knob was missing. It was set to OFF. I was able to turn it to A and TADA: Music! I looked it up after I lugged it's 48 pound body into the house. It was made in 2000 and retailed for $2,400! I continue to be very happy with it.
The DENON AVR-2805 (top unit) is quite a bit lighter, and like the SONY, it's full rated power output is measured from 20-20000 Hertz into 8 Ohms. Unlike the SONY, it's digital inputs (of which it does have many more of) are not labeled for specific sources. This lack of labeling, I was confounded and frustrated by when testing it. It also features six-channel RCA inputs for SACD players. Rather than printing out the manuals for the DENON and OPPO, (my Epson printer is an ink hog!) I bought printed and bound manuals for both units. I also bought the correct DENON branded microphone to audibly set-up the speakers for the best sound. Something which did not exist five years earlier when the SONY receiver was built.
The OPPO BDP-93 has several inputs of which I am not familiar with nor do not have a need for them.
Since neither of the receivers have HDMI inputs (they are too old) I had no use for the second HDMI output the BDP-93 has. Present are the 7.1 analog RCA outputs needed for SACD playback. I use the Coaxial output for AV disc playback.
I, of course, bought a better IEC equipped power cable for my new OPPO player. 
front panel controls so that one could do without a remote control if necessary. Fortunately, this one included the huge remote control seen below).
AUDIO ADVISOR Elevate Your Audio Experience with Audio Advisor (Not a sponsor! No one is, I do this out of love) had this A/V stand for a great discount many years ago, obviously, it was made for a CRT television. It has held up very well because it is made of solid wood and metal. [No particle board or MDF was used in the making of this TV stand.] ;-)
After many frustrating hours of trying to get the DENON receiver to work once I brought it into the living room, I gave up and reinstalled the SONY receiver. It's so much more straight forward and easy to use.
While the DENON has features (such as the microphone speaker setup) I prefer to keep the far more expensive (when new) and reliable old friend I have in the SONY.
The OPPO
features
The SONY hides rarely used controls behind that door which has a button to open it.
I find the SONY's white labeling and wide switches easier to see and work than the DENON's tiny buttons and gold script.
I have twenty SACDs to choose from and since the dozen years since I last had rear speakers to enjoy the six-channel versions of their content, I have been enjoying the full Super Audio experience again with much better speakers. 
TELARC CDs and SACDs producers must have enjoyed adding special effects to their SACDs. I demonstrated some to Nancy last night. I started with a space shuttle launch sound (to accompany music from Apollo 13) then the sound of F16 fighters roaring by to go with music from The Rock and finally, the sound of a tornado from Twister. The last one was starting to freak her out, she yelled, "STOP!" I asked why she wanted me to do stop. "It was a little to realistic." was her reply.
Thank you SO much for taking the time to read this article, my 527th! I had no idea that anyone would be interested in what I write about, but, YOU do! And I am truly humbled by that. Feel free to comment below or via Facebook.
Scott Robb
November 20, 2025
#527
