My Oppo is a bit too bright

  I must agree , my Oppo 105D is too bright . I also tried using my Audeze headphones and what I disliked about my Oppo was highlighted. I currently run a Schiit Yiggy and a Musical Fidelity transport . Most my interconnects are Morrow . I too considered upgrading the Oppo, but at this late date , I didn’t . I’m running a Rogue Pre and a Dennis Had Inspire to Zu Omens . Even with high quality NOS tubes, the Oppo was “ Too Edgy “. I went from a Schiit Bifrost to the Yiggy and couldn’t be happier . I can’t recommend other DACs without having auditioned one in my system, so I won’t . I use a Dennis Grey power filter , Hubbel outlets , Morrow power cords , and digital specific power cords for the DAC and transport . My TT is a modded Thorens with a Grado cartridge. So by comparison streaming Tidal Vs vinyl , it’s real close . But to be fair my TT needs a tonearm and cartridge upgrade which would definitely take it up a level . So to compare Tidal Masters streaming Supertramp’s “ Crime of the Century” to spinning my Mobil Fidelity Masters record , they both sound pretty good . The caveat of my share is that I’m on level “ B “ in Stereo land and there’s a ton of sky above me . So now my Oppo is in the closet due to limited rack space . I have a large collection of concert DVD’s and every once in a while will play one . So my vote is with the “ Get a Nice DAC “ camp, as 90% of my listening goes through the Yiggy . Happy Hunting , Mike B. 

Ideas:
Try playing with the OPPO filters.
Use the balanced analog output if you can and turn off the gain control.
Don’t use ’bright’ cables - try the inexpensive Benchmark Media cables.
Get a really well-recorded SACD (Heifetz, Roger Waters, Jorma Kaukonen, or Patricia Barber) to use as reference.
Use the OPPO USB input from a Mac Mini streaming buffered QoBuz music over a CAT 7 ethernet and a 300Mb internet connection.
Use ’Pure Audio’ mode.

@ivanj  That's one thing I've been done yet, has plugged my Oppo into my upstairs system / TV / and play with the filters there.

Aha, yes bright interconnects.

I was using Surfer XLR ICs, which are silver, and yes, THEY were bright. As soon as I replaced them with WireWorld Series 8 the brightness went away

Question: Checked out the Cocktail line and read up on some of the reviews. But question: What if I have no interest in ripping my cd's?

Like, what if I wanted to spend under 2000 on a streamer I could just run Tidal or Quboz through?