External DAC For Oppo 105 At What Cost?

Suggest you might far more enjoy adding a decent two tube buffer, good tubes and cables between the 105 and your preamp. I did am truly blown away and so are my jealous $3k+ modified players friends. Remarkable how adding something in the chain opens up and makes everything sound more like real people playing real instruments and removes the electronics sound.

I’m writing to correct misinformation above from yingtonggao in the post on 09-10-13 at 12:44pm:

The Oppo 103(D)/105(D) coaxial and optical outputs are not limited to 48khz for all files types and do not upsample Redbook audio from 44.1khz to 48khz. These outputs send PCM data at 16-bit/44.1khz from Redbook discs, when streaming HiFi from Tidal, or when playing MP3 or lossless CD rips from a computer or local network/drive.

Per page 19 of the owner’s manual (http://download.oppodigital.com/BDP105/BDP-105_USER_MANUAL_English_v1.4.pdf), the optical and coaxial outputs cannot pass certain high resolution formats on certain types of discs due to bandwidth and/or copyright restrictions.

For DVD and Blu-ray discs, high-resolution lossless audio formats will not be passed through anything but HDMI. This has nothing to do with Oppo’s coaxial or optical outputs, but rather external factors. Per Oppo’s tech support via personal email:

"Digital coaxial and optical can do 24-bit/192kHz, but only from sources like AIFF, ALAC, FLAC and WAV files. For Blu-rays, you are restricted to low resolution 24-bit/48kHz due to [Digital Rights Management]."

However, for movies this sampling rate limitation does not really matter because nearly all DVD and Blu-ray movie soundtracks are encoded at 48khz. The only time this limitation actually limits you is if you are trying to play lossless movie tracks (bandwidth limitation) or a music/concert disc encoded at 24-bit/96khz or higher (copyright limitation) through the coaxial or optical outputs. The Oppo can play high resolution, 24-bit/192khz FLAC files downloaded from HD Tracks when piped to the player through a local hard drive, thumb drive or local network.

For Super Audio CDs, due to copyright restrictions DSD cannot be sent over coaxial or optical outputs on any disc player (save an Audiopraise Vanity103 HD DoP board-modified 103/D). When coaxial or optical outputs are used when playing SACDs, the Oppo performs internal DSD-to-PCM conversion and passes 24-bit/88.2khz despite the hardware being capable of 24-bit/176.4khz. For the reason why, please see the below from this FAQ:

Why not 176.4KHz when converting SACD to PCM?

The hardware is capable of doing 176.4 and the licensing is not different. OPPO believes that 88.2KHz actually produces a better quality result for SACD DSD to PCM conversion. OPPO feels that even to offer 176.4 as an option would mislead people into thinking the higher rate must be better when that’s simply not the case.

SACD players do not convert at a higher rate -- as measured at the Analog output. The process of producing Analog from DSD for SACD requires a 50KHz filter (just as exists in the OPPO’s DACs when DSD-Direct-to-Analog conversion is in effect), which is the equivalent of a 100KHz sampling rate limit (see Nyquist Limit). 88.2 is the highest multiple of 44.1 that does not exceed 100.

If you’re only going to play Redbook discs or Super Audio CDs, there may be dedicated players that would better suit your needs. This is likely because they have better damping in the chassis and the transport and do not have any network, video, or headphone amp functionality. However, you will not get a better value than the Oppo 105/D though, especially if you have any interest at all in Blu-ray or other video capabilities; streaming from a local network or numerous online services, now including Tidal; have a local hard drive or computer to connect via USB; or have external devices like an Apple TV, game console (watch the input lag!), etc. to use with the HDMI and/or other digital inputs. It’s truly an audiophile’s Swiss Army Knife (coming from someone who uses it with an external, PCM-only DAC in a video 2.0 system).

To clarify the above because I cannot further edit the post: no player can output music from SACDs from an optical or digital output (save the Vanity board modification I described) due to copyright protection. This includes even the CD layer. The DSD-to-PCM conversion discussed above applies to HDMI/analog outputs only. See page 19 of the owner's manual.

It all comes down to personal preference. I'm using MW Sony 5400 with the updated PS 9.9 and I prefer it to all of the Dacs I've owned to include EE, Bryston, Berkeley and the Lampi Amber upgraded/equivalent to the Lvl 4 Gen 5 with a Tungsol rectifier .

They all were refined and sounded pretty good but at the expense of a much smaller soundstage and a decrease in impact. The MW soundstage was much larger/fuller and that's why I'm hesitant in trying any other Dacs or MW new Dac, because I'm happy with the sound of my spinner...