Best CDs

@n80,Excellent suggestion!I use that site to search the CDs.

If you read the Steve Hoffman Music Forums you will find that original issue (1980s) Cds are back in style, that is, they are often the preferred version. On those forums people have long debates over minute differences between different releases of a particular album as to which is better.

A lot of the problem is the Loudness Wars. In the 90s, record companies started compressing the dynamics of Cds so that they sounded loud all the way through instead of having loud parts and quieter parts (check out the Stones "Blue and Lonesome" for an example). Cds from the 80s tend to have greater dynamic range (quieter quiet parts and louder loud parts). Not all low dynamic range Cds are in your face aggressive though. You can have a Cd that is low dynamic range but sounds good.

At the Dynamic Range Database site linked above you want to find Cds that have a high rating, green numbers, if possible.

Anyway, keep those old Cds. They may not be the problem. I agree with others that the Oppo is not the best option for music.

Look into streaming too. That is definitely the direction music distribution is heading and you can get very good sound quality for reasonable prices for a separate streamer and DAC. It’s best to separate the functions because streamers don’t affect the sound as much as DACs (IMHO) and DACs are being improved steadily, so you might want to upgrade the DAC more frequently.

I use the Bluesound Node 2 (now Node 2i) streamer.  It's very easy to hook up and use and sounds good to me.

Here are some alternate opinions on streamers:

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/top-music-streamer-for-2019-aurender-n10-s

Oppo only sounds good for 2 channel CD from the XLR stereo audio outputs...