BD-83SE. The drive was getting a bit noisy (servo correction?) so fear of impending failure was a motivator. The Audiolab is so much quieter and quicker besides sounding better. I had the SPDIF iPurifier on it, with a DC iPurifier cleaning the iPower, making a further 10% improvement.

Do you have pictures of your 005 mods you can share? [sorry for the late ask, but I rarely visit this forum as I'm mostly a speaker guy, despite owning HD800 and Neuman NDH20 (for recording).]

Haha, that was my review! On further consideration, I'll add that the 005 was hardly warmed up, so not at it's best. I got my unit back in mid November. Still love it and working on improved feeding of it. I got an Audiolab CDT and Ifi SPDIF iPurifier2, which both improved on my Oppo as a...

I am awaiting delivery of a 005. It looks great, but I can't find a single review anywhere!

While I have also experienced the audible benefits of homemade AC filters with high quality capacitors, there is a safety risk with the capacitors you have chosen. UL standards require Class-X and Class-Y certified capacitors to be used. The risk is that a high voltage spike can short...

Here is the USB receiver someone over at whatsbestforum got working in his Gustard X20 to do DSD512 reliably: http://www.diyinhk.com/shop/audio-kits/107-xmos-dsd-dxd-768khz-high-quality-usb-to-i2sdsd-pcb.html   There are many interesting products for sale on that site, like a ES9038pro DAC...

I've not really studied up on this all yet as the choices for DSD512 are still few.   The Gustard does have a funny problem with non-conventional wiring of the HDMI connector for I2S after getting it wrong for an older product and then keeping the same pinout for compatibility. You either have...

The USB card by Gustard is small and fits in a slot. You would just need a Torx driver to open the case and back panel to get it in. I don't know what they would charge for just the card. This card does not do DSD512, which people say is the best quality. The XMOS chip used by Gustard is not the...

You may want to read the Sonica DAC manual or look at the back panel again. I was responding to post #208, labeled as a test of the Sonica Analog to Digital conversion.   The Sonica DAC has one analog stereo input that feeds a PCM1808 A to D converter after going through electrolytic...

Oppo Sonica DAC for A to D?  Not really designed for that. Its an afterthought free feature thrown in using a mid-fi chip PCM1808 that will make analog always sound inferior to digital! Like the Sonica outputs, the AtoD goes through electrolytic capacitors.

I stumbled upon a Japanese diy web page on building a ES9038 DAC that helps explain why Oppo didn't design the DAC with more parallelism of DAC channels for better specs and sonics. The 9038pro is like a 9028pro with each channel being 4 of those dac channels in parallel. Four times the current...

Generally there are protection resistors at the outputs of DACs. The output impedence is set by the value of these resistors. Op amps have their own protection in case of short circuit of the output or too much current delivery and overheating, so protection resistors are not always necessary...

I only use ferrite on the power wires right by the connector on the input/clock board exactly because they can roll off high frequencies on audio boards. Twisting power leads does a similar thing, but at lower frequencies - adding inductance to filter rf noise. So, my strategy is to filter noise...

Too soon for that. People can return units to Opp prior to 30 days for a full refund.

What capacitors did you use where? What was the theory on replacing them? Lower ESR, lower df/da?   The stock caps are the lowliest of the Nichicon Muse "Gold Tune" capacitors - what caps where do you find better?   I often go with higher voltages or values when replacing, especially next to...