Oppo Vs Esoteric

The Oppo 205 is way better than any previous Oppo.....however, it is still a stock Oppo.  No way stock will it compete with any big Esoteric or whatever.  However, modified it is another story.  You can see from my website what I do to the Oppo Sonica DAC to turn it into a serious DAC.  These same things I will be doing soon to the 205 making it a very serious player (for a very reasonable price!).  I do think the modded Sonica will be a better DAC as some of the 205 DAC outputs are used for the headphone output and the regulators power a bunch of op amps, etc. and not just the stereo output stage.  The Sonica DAC also has wireless streaming and a good app you can use with your smartphone.

The Oppo UDP-205 is an **absolutely essential** piece of gear in any serious A/V system, regardless of how much better the Esoteric is.

My suggestion, buy both, a UDP-205 and whatever else.

During the visits to the 5-6 dealers, I did not find a single system using either Esoteric or Marantz or Ayre SACD players. Mostly it was CD players (MBL, Simaudio, Rega) or streamer/DACs (Naim, McIntosh, etc). I have not yet made up my mind on this one, but I do prefer a disc spinner over a streamer.

I've only seen a couple responses here answering the OP - comparing a Oppo "205". The 205 is a very different beast than previous Oppos. I wish I could say I've compared the 205 to an Esoteric, but I can't. I do, however, own a -205 as my dedicated digital player, feeding my Rowland gear in balanced mode with Cardas XLRs, and I love it. It was pretty bright for for the first 10-20 hours. Definately change the output to 'variable' and set to 85 or 90. Full '100' output seems to further the brightness (no doubt driving the output stage of the Oppo hard). I did play with the 5 digital processing algorithms a bit, but have since settled on 'Brick Wall', the default but I could see someone with a different system than mine opting for a "slow linear" or one of those which further tames/rounds the far treble. My older Tannoys w/Rowland gear is pretty 'smooth' so much more rounding of the treble and things aren't natural anymore. The 'Pure Audio' mode is something I'm still playing with - a friend says he hears a differende - I don't; it just turns the video off. Maybe that is the difference. 

@boneman73

'Brick Wall' is not the default filter. Mini Phase Fast is. If you have "settled" on brick wall that would be peculiar as that particular filter, unlike the other 6, is primarily a diagnostic use only setting.