Oppo 105 D vs. DAC-transport combination.

melm,

     I guess you're right, I do seem to have a lot of opinions.  But isn't sharing and discussing information and opinions the main purpose of this site?  My comments and opinions are just my honest thoughts based on my personal knowledge and experiences accumulated through many years of being interested in and using audio/video equipment and enjoying listening to music.
     I readily admit I've never possessed a high quality vinyl/TT setup but I have listened to enough of them to know their appeal.  
     But you stated: " However, taking you at your word, the analog systems you have heard had noisy bearings--hence rumble, poor speed control--hence flutter, etc., were playing dirty records--hence annoying surface noise, inferior phono electronics--hence poor dynamic range, and poorly adjusted cartridges--hence poor channel separation. That seems to be your vinyl experience . . in your own words." 
  
     I believe those are your words, not mine.

     I also make no claims that my digital based system is of the highest quality.  But its quality is sufficiently high for me to know that its sound quality is superior to. and I prefer it to, the finest vinyl systems I've heard thus far.....in my opinion.
     Beyond sound quality, there is also the undeniable advantage of convenience.  This is especially important to me since the left side of my body is semi-paralyzed due to a stroke.  I use a laptop running JRiver Media Center software with a 10 TB NAS and my Oppo 105 as the dac/player.  All are connected to my wi-fi and this functions just like a very good quality juke box. 
     As I've stated previously, I perceive high resolution (24 bit/192 Khz or higher) digital files to sound superior to the finest vinyl systems I've heard thus far.  Hi-res files recorded direct to digital sound best to me but even transfers of analog masters to digital typically also sound very good; after all, hi-res digital is capable of copying the full resolution and quality of the original analog master reel to reel tape. 
      Of course, the preference of vinyl or digital is a highly subjective choice that others may and often do disagree with.  

Tim

     

In case anyone is still following this thread, I’ll update it.
 I finally got a power cable from Cyrus itself, and, lo and behold, it’s a THREE pronged IEC hole instead of the two hole designed for the unit.  The good news is that it works and sounds great, much better than the cable I was using.  The bad news is that, for some reason, the coaxial interconnect now produces no sound whatsoever!
Fortunately, the optical cable works.
I’ve called Cyrus.

The coax (Morrow)  kicked in finally, but it doesn’t sound as good as the optical.
 Maybe it has to break in more

What a difference with the new power cord.
Hard to exaggerate how much better the Cyrus-Gumby combo sounds than anything else I’ve tried.

 

I admittedly haven’t read through this entire thread, but in my search for ’Oppo 105 and transport’ it seemed to be the closest topic.

I was bored one day & decided to try connecting my old Technics DVD-A10 as a CD transport feeding digital out via both coax & optical to BDP105. I also configured the DVD-A10 for no upsampling to 192/24; strictly 16/44.

My reason for trying was simply out of curiosity but also my desire to extend for as long as possible the duty cycle of the BDP105 transport, since it also doubles & triples its duty for Blu-ray & SACD discs.

To my surprise, the music from CD's came through with an amazingly uncanny three dimensional soundstage that by comparison, using the BDP105 transport did not exhibit as well a three dimensional sound. The DVD-A10’s coax connection sounded slightly better than the optical, but not by much. The noise floor was also noticeably lower & the music just sounded more organic & accurate with respect to pace timing & rhythm.

It got me wondering if the isolation between the two components is a contributing factor; any thoughts why?