Oppo BDP-95 sounds GREAT?

I have one as well and I've heard the esoteric and wadia, the esoteric and wadia are better but for the price the oppo bdp 95 is a steal. However if you want to spend more money, no one here has mentioned msb which is significantly better than wadia and esoteric.

I have a question related to this thread:

I've been using USB keys for Hi-res flac files. My understanding is that per HD Tracks & others, the fact that USB drives have no moving parts tends to reduce jitter.

I am about to be gifted with a 3rd 2 tb USB e-sata hd that I currently have no use for.

Questions:

1. Would the hard drive's spinning degrade the sound (hi res) as compared to a non moving flash?

2. Does a USB connection require a high quality digital cable like an spdif does? If so, how good? I'm using a $300 Illluminati on my cd front end. Is something this high
quality required for usb?

Just an fyi, having now owned the stock 95 for a little over 7 months, I am very pleased. For the price, it sounds superb on high rez, though it is slightly less refined on redbook than my $3200 (in the 90's) Esoteric P-10-?Illuminati->PS Audio SL3 cd front end.

Also has the best video quality I've ever experienced, & that's through the component out, using the lesser of the 2 video processors.

My only significant complaints/caveats is make SURE you get one with firmware from 12/11 or earlier if you want to play iso's.

It would also be nice if it didn't have the 2 second pause between tracks on .flac playback.

Has anyone here upgraded to the 105D. Comments on CD sound?

Yep, did so this past February after having owned a 95 for almost three years. Wanted the Darbee processing and the improvements (heavier, more solid casework, no fan, better toroidal power supply, etc.) that the 105D offers.

Let me begin by saying that I thought the 95 sounded excellent as is. However, in my opinion, the 105D is head and shoulders better playing shiny discs of all types and USB. Even clearer than the 95, which is no slouch in this regard, with a little more meat on the bones and a deeper sound stage with better delineated images. Have not regretted purchasing it at all.