I actually answered this about a hundred pages ago.
OPPO HA-1 USB AUDIO 2.0 DAC Properties
Enhancement tab
- Disable all enhancements
Advanced tab
- 16 bit
- 44100Hz
- check to allow apps full control of unit
- check to allow exclusive mode
OPPO ASIO panel
- USB Streaming Mode: Extra Safe
- Asio Buffer Size: 8192 samples
Reasoning
This is for Windows PC as source, using USB.
Dropping streaming mode, result in a sound much like a lossy compressed rendering. It can be rather confusing, as some instruments might appear more defined as by the loss of data. Much like dropping from HiFi under tidal, to lossy compression.
Buffer size, is the same story. About any sonic trait improves across the board. In particular attack for perk and base. Strings in particular get their temper back. Soundstage is not even remotely the same. Articulation is in another league using the HD800. Harmonics and instrument bodies with the Denon mm500 goes from fine to a pleasure.
Given I did this first at 16bit/44.1KHz, I moved on to play with the sampling setting. Any gain from increasing the ASIO setting, is simply gone, if you increase the data rate. It is simply not worth it.
Setting the settings in Tidal to Oppo output, exclusive mode, fixed output, and HiFi is also a quantum leap as compared to Spotify. Having tried that, is the reasoning for the check boxes in the Windows settings. Must be enabled both in Windows and within application.
My current setup is a bit extreme for a HA-1 owner, but the settings have proved to be the same, using even my laptop, any decent headset, or even using all stock cables.
Any hints on how to improve the sound is most welcome.