Is OPPO worth the inflated price?

@lalitk

Transparency doesn’t always equates to musicality.

Musicality is a non-descript term, might as well say “The sound was too orange.” No one knows exactly what someone else means when they use that term. I used transparency, which is easily understood, meaning it adds no colorations. I prefer no colorations/distortions (let me hear my music, not my gear), and I stated the 205 was one of the best on the planet for this purpose, I have no arguments on what you find “musical”.  
  
Now, I would not use a CD Player as a DAC, so the 205 doesn’t interest me, and even for its transparency, I wouldn’t spend that much (even the Chord Qutest or Benchmark DAC3B are question marks for me).

Interesting that I’ve heard no complaints about the 205 breaking down. And,again, good ac power conditioning allows one to hear what the Oppo 205 can sound like. I’ve been very pleased with mine. Another thought might be the maturity of the dac development and the unit in the 205 ..

@ptss,
Agreed. Oppo units last a long time. My 970HD from 2007 is still running.
Honestly I like what I am hearing. Folks do mention that the Oppo does not compare to a CD-only player. Problem is - I do not know how many of these folks have actually done this comparison Vs just bashing the NEW Oppo.

I think it is worth the price. From 205 you will get a 4K player, a 32 bit PCM and DSD music player, balanced out (stereo), 7.1 (or 5.0 for DSD) out. An earhphone amp and pre-amp. I can’t name other play offer these @ $3000 range. If you spend $1000 to mod-wright it. It is a solid Strereophile class A music player. For best audio performance, I always use XLR balanced out at line-out level and use a pre-amp with balanced in-out. I also use XLR with variable out since 205 has a 32 bit DAC and won’t degrading 24 bit music resolution to some listening level. Did I ever mentioned MQA? Yes, the Oppo can decode MQA if you prefer Tidal. Or just go 192k/24bit. It can connect with your music library hard drive and play directly through it. The only missing on 205 is the Tidal and Netflix app.