Hi Randy,
My test of the addition of the Schiit Gungir to my system was rather straightforward. I played the Oppo straight into my preamp and then inserted the Schiit into the system. My preamp is a Don Sachs 6SN7-based preamp and an upgraded CJ MF-80 amp, with Spatial Audio Hologram M4 Turbo S speakers in a well-treated room. I had a Consonance tube CD player before the Oppo 103 and the improvement in sound with the Oppo was absolutely immediately noticeable and profound. I think the inescapable conclusion, to my 63-year old ears, is that the Oppo is a very worthy CD player.
In defiance of my own logic, I bought a Channel Islands DAC/power supply today to see if I find some improvement with it. I will report back on this thread if I hear some improvement with the new DAC.
Two final thoughts. My frame of reference for upgrades is that if I don't hear a noticeable sonic improvement with the substitution of a new piece of gear within a few notes then it probably isn't worthwhile (allowing for break-in, of course). Some might see this as an imperious judgment, but I have experienced it with the Oppo and with lots of tube rolling in my system, and with a couple of IC's. My sense is that if I have to work to hear the "improvement", it probably doesn't exist. Secondly, I think that current CD players even the price point of my Oppo, and tons come to mind, all have pretty good internal DAC's, for which the addition of an external DAC might be superfluous.
Randy, you note that you don't like CD's much. My audio pal has $10K Brodmann speakers, VPI TT with a fine tone arm and $2K MC cartridge, and the $20K top-of-the line ARC amp/preamp combo. His digital source is a ~$5K Modwright-modified Oppo CD player. We recently did an A/B comparison of the same music comparing the analogue and digital versions, back and forth between the same cuts in real time. Lots of the music was new analogue Blue Notes issues, 45rpm, and the same PCM recordings and a few SACD's. We did at least a dozen comparisons and the uniform conclusion we reached was that there was no perceptible difference between the formats... not on one recording, not on any recording. I have an upgraded SOTA TT, with a very fine tonearm and Dynavector MC cartridge, with a thousand jazz LP's, but I haven't played it in months as I find no sonic improvement over my digital versions of the same music.
Anyway, that is my take. Cheers.
My test of the addition of the Schiit Gungir to my system was rather straightforward. I played the Oppo straight into my preamp and then inserted the Schiit into the system. My preamp is a Don Sachs 6SN7-based preamp and an upgraded CJ MF-80 amp, with Spatial Audio Hologram M4 Turbo S speakers in a well-treated room. I had a Consonance tube CD player before the Oppo 103 and the improvement in sound with the Oppo was absolutely immediately noticeable and profound. I think the inescapable conclusion, to my 63-year old ears, is that the Oppo is a very worthy CD player.
In defiance of my own logic, I bought a Channel Islands DAC/power supply today to see if I find some improvement with it. I will report back on this thread if I hear some improvement with the new DAC.
Two final thoughts. My frame of reference for upgrades is that if I don't hear a noticeable sonic improvement with the substitution of a new piece of gear within a few notes then it probably isn't worthwhile (allowing for break-in, of course). Some might see this as an imperious judgment, but I have experienced it with the Oppo and with lots of tube rolling in my system, and with a couple of IC's. My sense is that if I have to work to hear the "improvement", it probably doesn't exist. Secondly, I think that current CD players even the price point of my Oppo, and tons come to mind, all have pretty good internal DAC's, for which the addition of an external DAC might be superfluous.
Randy, you note that you don't like CD's much. My audio pal has $10K Brodmann speakers, VPI TT with a fine tone arm and $2K MC cartridge, and the $20K top-of-the line ARC amp/preamp combo. His digital source is a ~$5K Modwright-modified Oppo CD player. We recently did an A/B comparison of the same music comparing the analogue and digital versions, back and forth between the same cuts in real time. Lots of the music was new analogue Blue Notes issues, 45rpm, and the same PCM recordings and a few SACD's. We did at least a dozen comparisons and the uniform conclusion we reached was that there was no perceptible difference between the formats... not on one recording, not on any recording. I have an upgraded SOTA TT, with a very fine tonearm and Dynavector MC cartridge, with a thousand jazz LP's, but I haven't played it in months as I find no sonic improvement over my digital versions of the same music.
Anyway, that is my take. Cheers.