oppo 105d mod or look for a new cd player ?

There's a dealer selling an EAR Acute III for $4300. I would seriously consider buying it. There's also an older Acute, without DAC inputs, up for sale at $2400, I think. They are very, very good for the money.

Have you considered buying a used Alpha Dac 1 for under $2000?

Why would anyone buy a CD player?? The Oppo will play all discs And with the Modwright Mod it will blow away the Ayre and the Esoteric in terms of warmth and richness and space and soundstaging. Go with the Modded Oppo its the best deal in audio right now for a source. IMO.

Matt M

Just buy a DAC. The Oppo will work great as a transport.

I personally think the industry pulled a fast one on us with the idea of using stand alone dacs. One of the elements that you were comparing when buying a CD player was how good the DAC Chip was in it. I hold on to the old fashioned idea that the CD player should have a really top notch DAC. Stop playing into this crazy-ness. I'm sure the industry is delighted with us doing separate DACS, they get to charge you roughly twice what they could charge for a good deck with of course a good dac section! for crying out tears.