New Oppo 103 & 105 Q&A Interview

Except the 93 model isn't the one with a good DAC stage as Oppo intended it primarily as a digital transport.

Doggiehowser - true, but not everyone wants to pay another $500 (now $700 with with 105 I beleive) for the better DAC and analog output. Some people are happy with the 93 as a DAC. My guess is that the 93 significantly outsells the 95, although I may be wrong. I just think a lot of people would be happy to have the async USB on the 103. And for those for whom $500 is a stretch, an async USB might be the enough to go for the 103, since they could save the money on a separate usb converter and/or a separate DAC.

$500 doesn't get you a much better external DAC than what's built into the 105s.

Nor will it process SACDs and multichannel BRs/DVDAs

Some people do not want to or cannot pay the extra $700 for the 103. Some people already have nice 2 channel DACs that they like. For those folks, the aysnch USB on the 103 would be nice. I would just like to see it, even potentially as an option, without having to pay the extra $700 for all the DAC upgrades.

I don't get your point. If they have a nice 2 channel DAC that they like, why bother with async USB on the 103? Just get a good USB-SPDIF device that's also async.