english

 OPPO 103EU vs VINCULUM Cinéphile 103 comparative review by Alejandro Rodríguez, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Introduction I had the pleasure and the privilege to participate in a comparative study between the VINCULUM Cinephile 103 bluray and the standard Oppo 103UE in the living room of my friend Peter, a few weeks ago. The room itself, it must be said, is not a dedicated room "standard". It is simply beautiful, impressive and a real show of exquisite taste in every sense. They are dedicated to Home Cinema 80m2, with a brutal deployment both in investment and equipment as in synergies between components. The team focuses 100% on Home Cinema 11.3, even if the stereo sound is also of the highest quality ( obviously can not be otherwise with such a cast). We speak about : Speakers: Dynaudio Evidence Temptation Central: Dynaudio Evidence center speaker Side speakers: Dynaudio Contour 1.3 MKII Back speakers: Dynaudio Contour Contour 1.3SE and 1.8 Special Edition Surround back: B & W PM1 Subwoofers: 3 B&W PV1D , 2 in front, 1 back Preamplifier: Denon AVC-­‐A1HD, It is an AV amp, but here is used only as a preamplifier for front and rear channels, and only amplifies some surround speakers. Front speakers amps: VTL 450 monobloc for each Evidence and VTL 150 stereo bridged in mono for the center Evidence speaker. Amplifiers for rear channels: 2 Gryphon Tabu One Hundred power amp 2 x 100w 8 ohms . (Dynaudio works 4 ohm) Preamplifier stereo: VTL 5.5 Sources: BD: Oppo 103UE CD et SACD: Denon A1UD Cables: front speakers: Mit S1 Magnum Shotgun For rear channels: Esoterique HDMI: Mit active 10 meters from Denon to projector Chord active 1.3 b from Oppo to Denon Projector: Marantz VP-­‐11S2 . Projection screen: Stewart Firehawk G3 Other accesories: Dune HD and DarbeeVision PRELIMINARIES For the test, Miguel González went from Galicia to Gran Canaria, bringing his Oppo Vinculum 103, developed by himself, in the "Cinephile" edition, ie, with internal changes to improve the "video" of the Oppo. There is another version called "Vinculum PLUS", which, apart from improving the image, has a high level of work in sound optimization, focusing on analog outputs, and ranks the Oppo Vinculum at much higher levels in this area, compared with the "factory" Oppo. These improvements are applicable to all Oppo production . In the first case, and given the level of the equipment that faces the Vinculum, Miguel suggested putting the factory settings on both Oppos and projector, and test them without the use of DarbeeVision. Thus, the two candidates would be in equality and the test is fair. No sense to compare an Oppo VINCULUM with an standard Oppo supported by sophisticated projector settings or Darbee, or both. It would not be a fair test, and in particular the conclusions would not be valid. TEST We begin with a movie on the unmodified Oppo , The Dark Knight (Batman), and we were focused on the most representative scenes, in blacks, action, movement, depth of field or sharpness image. The first thing that appeared before the test of the VINCULUM was that the picture quality of Peter´s equipment, with the standard Oppo, was great. Excellent . Then put the Oppo VINCULUM and we started to compare the different selected sequences. We did the same thing with the film "Oblivion" And finally a classic on tests: "Avatar". We could not forget it. RESULTS Although it seemed very difficult for the VINCULUM (or at least we had this in mind as we envisioned the scenes in the "normal" Oppo), reality set in a very direct and palpable form. With the VINCULUM, blacks reached a much higher level of depth and a notable improvement in image contrast. As stated by Miguel, "the father of the child", it seems like a subtle gray veil covering dark areas and that caused a degradation of color in general, has been removed. Even applying high brightness levels, blacks are shown in all its splendor and depth, with no light pollution, showing the entire color palette in a more vivid way, with more shades of rich, vivid color, but never losing its natural saturation line. In my case, for my vein as professional photographer, perceptions in sharpness and color gradations were extremely noticeable. What initially bordered perfection putting the "normal" Oppo, when we switched to the VINCULUM , we realized the existence of that "veil" , the lack of sharpness and contrast in the standard Oppo and the great improvement provided by the modified Oppo. Another thing that became very clear in the test, is that where the improvement was more noticiable was with picture in motion, including those with a high level of action taken at the scene. In these, the sharpness and detail provided by the VINCULUM, became even more present. Were obvious without having to do any fixing or effort. The images flowed in an overwhelming way , amazing for its reality, breathtaking.... As for the depth of field it was also clear the superiority of the VINCULUM , when we pay special attention to images where this indicator was paid to detailed analysis by all attendees. And win by a large margin again in favor of VINCULUM . According to Miguel, this whole range of improvements is due to a work of "fine" adjustments of the reading abilities of the Oppo, at data level on physical disk. Specifically modifications and internal adjustments on the disc transport with a high degree of precision. This results in a drastic reduction of the jitter and reading errors. CONCLUSIONS If you have an Oppo 93, 103 or 105, you like the Home Cinema at a "cinephile" level and you have a projector that reaches 1080p, it worths the financial effort to ask Miguel the VINCULUM conversion for your current bluray. Or directly access to a new Oppo Vinculum. For my part, it touches me, I was eager to try a VINCULUM PLUS, where improvements already discussed in the field of the image, are increased in the field of the analog sound of the Oppo, providing an audio improvement extremely noticeable according Miguel, so don´t discard this summer, if the fates me are supportive and I can move to Galicia, leave doubts, and if the acoustic improvements and benefits result to be the same or similar than those achieved in the video field, I will convert my Oppo 93 to the VINCULUM version without a doubt. Finally i thank Pedro (right) and Miguel (left) his invitation to this comparison test , which revealed the great level as a host of the first one, and the willingness to share a work of highest technical level and digest any critics with the best humour of the second. Hugs to both. Review and photographs by Alejandro Rodríguez, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria 2014