CD Sound ; Esoteric x-03 versus Oppo 105

Are you kidding?

"09-26-15: Ptss
yes, it's a serious question."

I was just kidding. The way you worded your question made me laugh. I know you were being serious. There's a pretty big difference between the 2.

"10 years difference.
Is it unreasonable to think technological
improvements over 10 years could be that great?
Based on other electronic developments-I don't
think it was such a stretch."

Its a valid question. One thing to keep in mind is that CD has been out for about 33 years. I think high end audio designers have squeezed about as much as you are going to get from the format. Its been like that for a while, and I don't think we'll see any more big improvements for Redbook.

There is one major issue that quite a few people overlook with digital audio sources. And that's the analog section of the player. It's just as important as the digital section. So even if you're comparing CD players with the same dac chips and transports, the players can sound very different from each other due to the design of the analog stage.

Some of the qualities you guys are listing with regards to all these different players, is almost certainly due to the differences in the analog section of the dac's.

"10-10-15: Ptss
Zephyr. I appreciate your response and the difference in build and analog quality. I was thinking more along the line of a 10 yr old state of the art hi-def,1080P TV versus a new good quality 4K TV and wondering if that was the situation. Thanks."

That's a valid concern with video, but not audio. 4k TV just came out, but there has been no new audio formats introduced in the last 10 years.