For the life of me, I don't see how anyone can draw any conclusions from listening to quite a few different components, within a short period of time. This gets very confusing. I can't tell you how many times I've compared changes during one session, and picked what I thought was the best, and only to decide after long term listening, over multiple sessions and MANY different recordings (days or weeks), that I made the wrong choice. When comparing things too quickly, the positives jump out immediately, but over long term listening, the negatives will start setting in, and wear on my nerves.
I think you may have selected the player that you found to be the "easiest" to listen to (forgiving), and will probably be the most boring, in the long run. The system synergy thing goes a long way, and in most cases, a component change may require some other changes, elsewhere in the chain, to better compliment the change in sonic character, which may be heard with a component change.
Oh, and the "shallow" soundstage of the Oppo is a common characteristic of less expensive players/dacs, and can be a turn off for many, especially Maggie users.
And, if you're going to throw a Jolida in the mix, you should have used one in stock form. You're comparing a player that sounds different then what the vast majority of JD100 users will be hearing. Even simple tube selection will make or break the player, within a particular system, and once modified beyond the basic level 1 mods, the original intended sound of the unit is lost.
And to anyone who thinks everything sounds the same, God bless you! I wish everything sounded the same to me, so listening to music can be just an activity, instead of a hobby.
