OPPO BDP 103/105, sound quality???


I'm looking for player that will play Blu-ray, SACD, DVD-audio and CD's.
That also sounds pretty great. I realize with a budget of $1K, I'm not going
to get Esoteric sound. But there must be "Universal" options
that sound pretty damn good? Any help would be appreciated.

markeetaux
For the price the Oppo is a fantastic player. I own one (actually two) and some other players/DAC (higher-end stuff). When I do A/B tests I am always pleasantly surprised at the performance of the Oppo. The price-performance ratio is great. It will handle anything you throw at it to play (unlike some pricer players) so your "universal" criteria would be met - it's amazing in this regard. I don't think you can go wrong with it. You can always move it to another system if you get tired and want to go really high end. 
I just got the Oppo 103 for DVD/BlueRay playback, and the sound quality is superb. It has RCA outs for a 2-channel hookup (as well as 5 channel hookup), which is what I use.

My own feeling is that, where CD players are concerned, you can hit the upper limit on sound quality at a relatively low price point--heresy for some, I know. Could the discerning ear hear the difference b/t a 103 and the 105? I doubt it. In fact, I doubt discernible sound differences between my old Sony $99 dvd player and the Oppo 103 that replaced it. I only got the Oppo for it's build quality and versatility--not only playback variety, but convenience features.
Stewie wrote,

"My own feeling is that, where CD players are concerned, you can hit the upper limit on sound quality at a relatively low price point--heresy for some, I know. Could the discerning ear hear the difference b/t a 103 and the 105? I doubt it. In fact, I doubt discernible sound differences between my old Sony $99 dvd player and the Oppo 103 that replaced it. I only got the Oppo for it's build quality and versatility--not only playback variety, but convenience features."

That's probably not welcome news for many folks who have sunk beaucoup bucks on high end CD players, including yours truly who spent a small fortune upgrading my own Oppo 103 to at least two levels above Nose Bleed level. 

Oppo 105D owners,

Can you please comment on the load time for a standard redbook CD? I'm thinking about replacing my Oppo DV-970HD w/Ric Shultz mods that has server me very well for years.. However, I play a lot of standard CDs and don't want to suffer with long load times. I've used another brand of univeral player that was very slow loading for CDs, as well as other formats, and I don't want to make that mistake again.