Oppo Digital is on a hot streak, if you ask me. On the other hand, I’m not sure they’ve been on anything other than a hot streak, so I’m not really sure where that leaves us. Lets try that again.
Oppo Digital is awesome.
I might have 5 different Oppo disc spinners in my house at the moment, and yes, they all work and work fine. I’m not going to answer the “why so many” question, as that reveals a bit too much about me (I’m a techno hoarder … oops). Anyway ….
The recently launched PM-1 planar magnetic headphone ($1,099) is a barnstormer of a headphone. I have one at home and I’m more than a little in love with the look, the feel and the sound. When matched up with the “matching” HA-1 headphone amplifier ($1,199), you have a truly kick-a$$ desktop-friendly rig.
Oh, is $1,099 too much? Yeah, that is a little pricey. No worries! The PM-2 is their “affordable” offering. And by affordable, I mean pretty much the same except it’s less expensive. Yeah. Same drivers, and a very similar sound — in fact, very similar. One signature, two sets of fit and finish. Dealer’s choice!
And the hits keep coming. Shown here was the PM-3, a closed back headphone prototype. Another prototype, a very slim, leather-wrapped, battery-driven DAC/amp named the H2, was available for fondling as well! Whee! From Jason Liao of Oppo:
The new PM-3 and HA-2 are still in development. What we showed were working prototypes. For this reason the price is not announced yet. We hope to make the PM-3 affordable as a travel headphone, so its price will be definitely lower than the PM-2 ($699), but how much lower we do not know yet. The HA-2 prototypes are built without much consideration to the cost so again the price is unknown. We hope to make these products available in about 3-month time frame. There is no preset release date so our engineers can take as long as required to get the products right.
Looks to me like Oppo, a company perhaps best known for DVD/Blu-Ray disc players, is taking the headphone market rather seriously. More to come ….
