Am I deaf?

One other small point. The digital out of the Oppo if never used before... May need breaking in, even though the player has been in use for years. Not so the digital out .Give it a few weeks of use. THEN see how they compare.
When I hooked up a used but new to me changer to digital RCA out .it SUCKED. (I have a feeling the over 20 year old player had never been used with digital out, ever) and was not good for at least a week of all day playing. But now it is just fine.

Ok but isn't the digital out on all the time whether it's connected or not?

Many/most players have a switch or menu item to turn it off if not in use. Left on, not in use adds a ton of spewed hash...

Maybe I'm not sure what I should be listening for? When I got the Ayre pre I could hear a difference right away. When I got the SMC power amp it was much harder to tell. When I got the Cardas cables I knew I couldn't give them back. 

Honshagen, as an Ayre C5xe owner and using Cardas throughout my system, I can tell you I love the Ayre sound and Cardas sound. I also have a BD105 and tried their DAC in comparison with my previous Rega DAC and the Cutest and preferred the outboard DAC both times.
I am using the Node2 for streaming and set the Cutest filter on 3 or light green (I do find Chords colorful light indicators annoying) and find it shares the timbre voicing of the Ayre sound, as I know it. I tried a number DAC’s in the price range of the Cutest and I went back to the Chord every time, having heard it first.
I encourage you to give it more time and let it settle in and as a final note, try the different output levels keeping in mind the tolerances of the pre-amp. I found 2mv to be the best in my system.

Good Listening