Universal Players vs. Dedicated CD/SACD Players

Thank you tonykay. I had an all Macintosh system at one time and I felt their digital gear didn't keep up with their electronics. Unless you want the "all McIntosh" look (which I love) there are better options for digital playback IMHO.

I have an Oppo 105D and sent it to ModWright for their complete upgrade. I auditioned an Audia Flight CD One M and it blew the modded Oppo completely out of the water when playing red book CDs.  Audia Flight comes next week and the Oppo gets relegated to server and streaming duty.

Found something better than the Sony Modwright XA5400ES...The Kell Cipher!  It's da bomb Dadeo...like, far out man..yeah!!

Agree that the Cipher is an outstanding player.  Hope you have a sturdy rack - that thing is a monster!

jafant, the Nad C565BEE is indeed a fine spinner! I’d forgotten to try the Sample Rate Converter with compressed files. With the Nad, they don’t sound compressed at all, the air and detail has me grinning from ear to ear. By comparison, the Oppo 95 could sound somewhat tinny or one dimensional with mp3’s.

But with redbook, the Oppo still lags behind what this Nad can do as well. They were pretty close to the same price back in 2011 when I was looking, but the 565 wasn’t even on my radar as Oppo was all everyone was talking about. I didn’t need or want a bluray player, I just wanted something for cds.

Don’t get me wrong, the Oppo does a lot of things well, but I think I agree with you that they are not the last word in audio quality.