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The following is an excerpt from an exclusive Editorial that appears in our 2023 Secrets Audio/Video Showcase guide. To experience the Guide and read the full Editorial, Click Here!
I am annoyed.

That’s not really anything new, I get annoyed with a great many things on a seemingly more regular basis. But to you know-it-alls and naysayers out there that insist physical media is dead and streaming is king, you can just stuff it as far as I’m concerned. I like and continue to buy physical media and I demand someone make a high-quality device to play it all, properly and with excellent results. The last company to make a player that came close to doing it all was OPPO.

I shed buckets of audio and videophile tears when they left the A/V market and focused on making phones and other goods that I have no interest in. It pains me to no end to see the choices in universal disc players slowly dry up to the point we are left with just half-baked options, most without all of the features I want.

OPPO UDP-205 Ultra HD Blu-Ray Disc Player Internal View with disc tray open

But before I delve into the technical details of what my perfect universal disc player should do and why OPPO is so missed, it’s important to spell out the underlying reason why such a device is still needed. In a word, it’s about OWNERSHIP. I am one of those Neanderthals that still likes to own physical copies of his media. Don’t scoff. If you own any sort of CD (or “gasp” LP) collection) you are on the same rung of the evolutionary ladder as I am. And, if you still own cassettes, you’re just weird and I can’t help you. Seek professional help.

Now, this does not mean I am against streaming or having a copy of what I own, available digitally, to play on a portable device. Not in the slightest! What it does mean is, if I am going to go through the effort of putting together an audio or video system that affords me a superior experience, then I am ultimately going to want to physically own the content I find meaningful and wish to enjoy. And I want that physical copy to be available to me in the best quality format that I can afford. Currently, physically, for audio, that means a CD or SACD or Blu-ray-Audio, and yes, I’ll even throw the old DVD-Audio format in there. For video, it physically has to be 4K UHD Blu-ray with all the HDR flavors available to exploit.

See LatestSonus faber Lumina II Amator Bookshelf Speaker Review

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A native of Toronto Canada, Carlo's interest in audio began at a young age when, unbeknownst to his mother, he started taking apart her numerous transistor radios to see how they worked. This desire for “knowledge through deconstruction” continued through to the family’s 8-track tape player, turntable, headphones, and speakers. Carlo subsequently spent a lot of time in his room. Toronto was a fertile ground for Hi-Fi in the 1970s and 80s and Carlo spent much of his wayward youth hanging out in downtown Toronto stereo shops, listening to all manner of gear and picking the brains of the various store owners. Through that formative experience, Carlo developed an appreciation for good music and good sound reproduction. Also, as a budding graphic artist, the aesthetic aspects of a given piece of gear became increasingly of interest to his eyes. It was at about that time as well that Carlo began purchasing “Audio Magazine” on a regular basis and came to appreciate, in particular, the writing and reviewing of the late Leonard Feldman. Later on, he was also influenced by the writing and observations of the staff at Sound and Vision Canada, helmed at the time by Alan Loft. Carlo graduated from Sheridan College with a degree in Classical Animation and was subsequently employed by Walt Disney Consumer Products for 10 years as a Character Artist and Art Director. Having become disenchanted with Los Angeles, he then decided to strike out on his own. Carlo started his own company and has been freelancing artwork, from his home studio, primarily for the toy and publishing industries since 2001. In 2013, on a bit of a lark, Carlo answered a “Call for Writers” ad from an AV website that he had been regularly reading for about 5 years called Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity. He had come to appreciate the website’s combination of subjective impressions along with the objective bench-testing available in several of the reviews. The “B-Team” must have been working that day because by some miracle he was hired as a writer and his first review for the site was published early in 2014. Carlo has been continually writing, editing, traveling, listening, and learning on the company’s behalf ever since. Carlo currently lives in Granville, Ohio with his wife, two sons, and a very old, but chill dachshund.

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