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Oppo 105 D vs. DAC-transport combination.

To my great dismay, the more I listen, I’m finding my Oppo 105 is outperforming a very well thought of DAC and transport combination for which I paid 3x the price.  Basically the sound stage is wider and better defined.
Both the DAC and transport are less than a year old.  I thought I was upgrading.
Played by itself, the DAC-transport combo sounds great.  Until I compare it to the Oppo. 
I can’t understand it!
128x128rvpiano
rvpiano's avatar
rvpiano OP
2,708 posts
 
ICs are Morrow Toslink between the Cyrus and the DAC, Morrow MA4 out of the DAC to the preamp, MA 3 between the Oppo and the preamp (RCA’s).
Stock power cords on both Cyrus and Oppo.
Morrow MA 4 power cord between preamp (Currently Emotiva XSP1, while my Conrad-Johnson PV11 is out for repair,) and Nuforce (Reference 9 V3) mono-block amps.
I have the Oppo 95.  The 105 is light years better.
audioengr
3,282 posts
 

It’s the jitter on the S/PDIF coax output of the Oppo:

https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=154408.0

The same jitter will not be experienced when using the internal DAC.

It can be fixed and even improved however:

If you add a Synchro-Mesh reclocker and a good BNC coax cable, the Oppo jitter is reduced to ~7psec at the end of the cable, rather than the 800psec of the Oppo and cable alone. More than 100X less jitter. You will not find ANY transport with jitter this low.

Jitter is ALL that matters in a digital source.

Steve N.

Empirical Audio

dweller's avatar
dweller
3,811 posts
 
I recently sold my Oppo 105 after my 205 arrived. I swear within the last six months the 105 was sounding SO GOOD! Could it take five years to break in?
rvpiano's avatar
rvpiano OP
2,708 posts
 
Dweller,

Are you saying you liked the 105 more than the 205?
Important! because I’m seriously considering getting the 205.
dweller's avatar
dweller
3,811 posts
 
@rvpiano - There were many reasons for buying the 205. As it is still breaking in, won't make judgements yet. The 205 does sound great out-of-the-box. It's just that the 105 always sounded a little "in your face", a tad harsh with redbook CDs (which is why I often used a Rega DAC). SACD sounded fantastic, however. The 105 just started to sound its best in the last few months. I will say that the 205 makes quite a bit of noise when playing MQA CDs (I have only one). It sounds like a PC burning a CD at 3X speed. Don't know if it makes the same noise streaming. 
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