OPPO 105; how to beat it and at what price?

Ditto a Ric Shultz modified Oppo 105. It beat an Esoteric I had for an in house addition.

As an end note to this thread my Esoteric K-01 arrived today and right out of the box my reaction was WOW. I didn't think it was possible to get that kind of improvement. Obviously one would expect this for the price difference. I often think some of this crazy high end gear is more hype than real improvement. Maybe I'll start believing that cables make a major difference (not there yet)?

You might find it interesting to audition an MIT Oracle AC2 powercord with your Oppo. The improvement in sound will not be at all unremarkable. (I know the AC2 is expensive). I would be very interested to hear how much closer the sound is to your Esoteric on its regular power cord!

Question to Rick, with all honestly, what is better sounding as a 2 chanel CDP: your fully modified OPpo 105d or unmodified esoterick k-03 or k-01. What modified esoteric will sound like? Thank you

I think Dsper had the $5000 Esoteric.....but I nor anyone I know have had a $13,000 or $20,000 Esoteric to A/B with. If my modded 105 beats a $5000 Esoteric it does not mean its as good as the way more expensive ones.....I kind of doubt it. The Esoterics are super well made. If you have unlimited money then fine but seems to me you could get a super DAC (for way less money) and run it from a modded Mac/PC or server and get even better sound. There is the DSD only Lampizator that could be used with software to upsample all PCM to DSD, for instance. I bet I would like that better than a super expensive Esoteric.....but who knows? Digital is changing fast. I personally would not want to spend a lot of money on a player. What is so nice about the modded Oppo is that it is a great player (CD, SACD, DVD-A, HDCD, whatever), a great DAC (including double speed DSD and 352K input), a great headphone amp (with all the mods), a great multichannel player, can stream various things and has great HDMI inputs, and a great DVD and Blue Ray player (with fantastic picture and Darbee enhancement capabilities). It is the kind of thing you would keep for years and years and it will always sound good and can be used in any number of ways in any number of systems.