ELECTROCOMPANIET EMP3 BLU-RAY/UNIVERSAL DISC
PLAYER
Alan Sircom
Jun 26th, 2013
For an audio company that isn’t the size of Sony, making a universal disc player is fraught with
difficulties today. Despite it being not the rip-roaring success it was hoped to be (Netflix, LoveFilm
and illegal downloads taking their toll), it’s very difficult to make a universal player without including
Blu-ray. Not only does that open up a whole heap of problems for an audio company having to deal
with video-side issues, but the cost of paying for licenses to build Blu-ray players is prohibitive
unless you sell them in batches of 10,000 per month. And yet, many of those who still buy disc
players demand players that can support more than just CD.
Electrocompaniet has done what many companies faced with the same problem has done – buy
an off-the-shelf OEM Blu-ray player, and make it EC’s own. In the majority of cases today, that
means buying an Oppo, as Electrocompaniet used as the backbone for the EMP3 multichannel
universal player. That way, Oppo is the license payer and the audiophile brand gets to act as hotrodder. But, in so doing, brands like Electrocompaniet invite potential censure; Oppo makes a good
product at a keen price and invariably the brand using that Oppo as a platform for its own product
needs to add more than a front panel to justify its existence.
In the case of the EMP3, Electrocompaniet takes the standard Oppo BDP-103 platform and runs
with it. The unsullied BDP-103 is a fine Blu-ray player in its own right, capable of full 3D picture
replay and this part really isn’t touched (screensaver aside). It’s an Oppo strong point and why
mess with what’s already good. However, if you paw over the reviews of the Oppo conducted by
hi-fi magazines especially, there’s a common consensus that the sound quality of the standard
Oppo output stage is a bit of a weak spot. This is where EC comes into its own.
The company added its own balanced stereo output stage and DAC board, hooking a set of XLR
terminals on the back of the player. This both upsamples PCM to 24bit, 192kHz as standard and
can cope with DSD playback (direct) from SACD directly. The multichannel phono outputs and the
circuitry that goes with it are retained from the Oppo. It also retains the wifi over USB connection
(cables and dongle supplied) and the provision for connecting into an Ethernet network, it can hook
to a DLNA network for playing music though its My Network, but this is a trifle clunky compared to
dedicated systems from the likes of Cyrus, Linn and Naim (and even EC itself). But once again,
much of this is Oppo territory. Even the remote is the Oppo model, with an Electrocompaniet badge
on the front.
Yes it comes in the Electrocompaniet livery – changing the five button Oppo diamond control panel
to the four-button commander, and the attendant changes to the control architecture, represents
the biggest external change, although the Electrocompaniet classic black and gold behind thick
acrylic front panel and generally solid build quality have been applied to the player.
You could spend hours meaninglessly philosophising about the nature of naming (Saul Kripke
made his philosophical bones discussing why ‘Richard M Nixon’ and ‘the person who won the US
presidential election in 1968’ are not necessarily identical, so get it right and a PhD and a life of
navel gazing beckons), but ultimately whether you look at this as an Oppo player in expensive
Norwegian clothes or a really good stereo universal disc player largely hangs on one thing –
balanced operation. If you use an amplifier with a balanced input, this is a fine choice for playing
all kinds of disc extremely well. Whether it’s that almost forgotten collection of DVD-Audio discs
(I’ve got copies of albums like Fragileand Harvest on the format, and they are among the best
sounding albums I own, generally streets ahead of the standard CD versions) your still-growing (if
you are a classical collector) SACD collection, some form of Blu-ray music disc or good ol’ CD, the
performance is extremely enticing through the balanced circuitry.
Especially the latter in fact. It’s an excellent upsampling CD player with a fine sense of the unforced
and natural to the performance. It’s actually pretty tough to pin down, because the EMP3 doesn’t
draw attention to itself in any way, just making a sound that is understated yet fundamentally right.
It’s dynamic, yet not so overtly dynamic to make you point that out or reach for a copy of something
bombastic. It’s coherent and detailed too, but again in the sort of unhurried, untroubled way that
makes you listen to the music and forget about the playing of it. Soundstaging is good, but not overelaborate. Yes, it’s possible to mistake this for being a touch flat and uninspired, and in the context
of the wrong system – one that demands and expects an edgy sounding player to enliven the
presentation – this is not the player to choose. Nor should it be used as a civilising element,
although I can see it being used that way. But, instead if the system is one of those that approaches
its task without great emphasis, grace or favour. I guess the key word is ‘mature’; it’s a grown up
sound for people who’ve done all the fireworks and are comfortable in listening to music rather than
the sound it makes.
The difference between ‘mature’ and ‘uninspired’ is best explained by the player’s abilities across
a wide range of music. I suppose given the predilection for really odd black metal in Norway in the
early 1990s, I should have guessed that Electrocompaniet would be a shoe-in for playing the
audiophile’s fave metal act, Tool. But I didn’t expect it to be quite so adept at that forceful onslaught
sound you get from the likes of Pantera. And what I really didn’t expect was to be able to play
Pantera back to back with Debussy and Bill Evans and find the musical breadcrumbs linking the
three (it’s possible… just).
There’s a very definite hand at work with Electrocompaniet’s digital players, because they all have
a common goal of sounding like music rather than like digital sound. You don’t discover this in a 10
minute listening session, but when you kick back the hours listening to music without the slightest
fatigue. It’s not the kind of thing you even notice when taking notes, save for the lack of notes you
end up taking about the product.
In balanced mode then, the EMP3 has a field almost to itself, with only products like the Ayre DX5 (also built on an Oppo platform) as any real challenge.
If you don’t have or plan to one day own an amplifier with balanced input, the justifications for the
EMP3 begin to fall away fast. It’s still a fairly good performer, both in stereo and multichannel mode,
with exceptional picture quality too. But that just shows the quality of base model Oppo. It will not
provide a sonic challenge to any decent £1,000 CD or CD/SACD player, but its sins are of omission
rather than commission, but it goes from mature and intelligent to sounding inconsequential.
This is however, a great strength in multichannel music mode, because it doesn’t go for the jugular
the way some more cinematic-oriented players seem to. I’ve got to admit, my multichannel music
collection is more limited than I’d like and much of it is Blu-ray concert-based material, but on this
it is outstanding, even through my cobbled together ‘bitza’ home cinema system left over from my
multichannel reviewing days.
It would be easy to highlight this balanced-only Electrocompaniet recommendation as being a
curate’s egg of a player. In fact, it just makes it fit snugly within the confines of the Electrocompaniet
ecosystem, where balanced is king. Many of EC’s Classic Line products are not only balanced by
default, but only have balanced connectors in place. The EMP3 is just another expression of that.
Granted, that makes it more likely to be the disc player of choice for someone building on the
strengths of an EC amplifier, instead of the first foot in the EC door, but its strengths in such a
system are so marked and obvious, it’s makes models like the EMP2 and ECC1 players in the
range a tougher commendation. Not for everyone, then, but in the right context, the EMP3 is a
tough act to follow.
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Compatible formats: CD, DVD, SACD, DVD-Audio, Blu-ray (2D and 3D), AVCHD, HDCD,
Kodak Picture CD, CD-R/RW, DVD±R/RW, DVD±R DL, BD-R/RE, BD-R/RE DL
Audio Outputs: 1 x 2ch. balanced line out (XLR), 7.1ch single ended (RCA)
Digital Outputs: 2x HDMI, 1x TosLink S/PDIF, 1x Coax S/PDIF
Video Outputs: 2 x HDMI (NTSC: 480i/480p/720p/1080i/1080p/1080p24, PAL
576i/576p/720p/1080i/1080p/1080p24) Composite
Digital/Analogue conversion: 24bit, 192kHz
Dimensions (WxDxH): 46.6x31.6x9.3cm
Weight: 10kg
Price: £2,490