Hope this is my last report on this Oppo with these problems.

Gary, sent a PM with a little more info for you only.

Starting with Monday night, asked my wife and daughter if they`d like to watch a Bluray Laura Croft tomb Raider movie. Gary left this disk in the Oppo drawer when he sent it back to me. They were willing, but didn`t give the movie high marks. But it played beginning to end without static. When over, keeping the power on, I played the Leonard Cohen CD and the Berlin Concert Bluray disks and both erupted as they have before with static.

Then Tuesday, I did the tests as requested by Gary and Shawn after confirming the settings as spec`d by Gary with downmix to 7.1 as Gary recently stated.

Moved the Oppo to our front room Pioneer CD/JVC receiver/NHT stereo setup. I tested the Pioneer with the Leonard Cohen disk that the Oppo can`t play. It worked fine on the Pioneer/JVC.

Time for the Oppo. Plugged it in, powered it on and started with the Cohen disk listening on Oppo 1 output. Instant static! No sound from Oppo 2 or 3 as expected on a CD.

Switched to a random CD titled Playing for Change. 1st 10 seconds are a speaking voice and guitar strumming, no problem. At about 10 seconds in, loud static as singing starts.

Switched to the Bluray Berlin concert disk, still within this power up cycle. It remembered where I stopped last night and started up at around the 40 minute mark. There is a loud crescendo coming up at around 40:30. At that point, loud static on Oppo 1 and Oppo 2. Oppo 3 (surrounds) is clear.

I powered down and unplugged the Oppo, waited a couple of minutes, powered back up and got the same result on the Bluray disk; corrupted output on 1 and 2, surrounds are clear.

Then unplugged again, went to back room TV and switched down mix to 5.1. All settings again verified as correct.

After 5 minute wait, back up front, plugged in, power on and same results. Static on 1 and 2, surround out is clear.

I`m done, taken up too much space in this thread. I think these tests conclusively show that this Oppo is badly compromised and unreliable and should be replaced.
There is no reason to suspect Meridian settings are causing these problems.

Gary, I`ve sent a pm indicating what I hope you`ll decide to do about this…what do you say as to next steps?


Roon, Technics SL10 turntable, Meridian 218, Jolida tube DAC, Nuforce STA 200 Amp and passive Swallow Acoustics ALS2 speakers