High Quality Universal Player??

I've had Universal Players through the years from Marantz, Denon, Oppo, and NAD.
  My advice would be to have a really good DAC for CD.  There are at least 2 DACs that have HDMI inputs which you could use with a BD player for SACD and Blu Ray (NAD and Bryston ), or failing that I would probably go with the Oppo 105.  Marantz players and amps tend to roll off the top end.
  If you were to tell us budget it would be easier to guide you

I have both the Oppo BDP-103 and the BDP-105D and have used both in the same system.  Substituting the 105D for the 103 was a definite improvement in sound quality to my ears.  They do use different DACs. The 105D uses the ESS Sabre32 32-bit DAC (ES9018), the BDP-103 uses a 24-bit Cirrus Logic DAC (CS4382A).  My Oppos, by the way, are used in systems with Maggies (1.7i or 3.7i), if that has any import for the OP.

LarryRS

I have owned a 105 for about the last 4 years now and I gotta say that it has performed very well. I recently performed an upgrade to the a/v portion of my system (minus the 105) and I was forced to use the 105 as an HDMI Switch. It performed brilliantly and note that the phone app makes it easy to operate all functions with your smartphone to boot. All of the streaming functions have also worked well too. My only complaint is that the transport mechanism doesn't always seat properly back into the unit when closing.

If I wanted an Oppo BDP-105D for audio; (I do Santa) but wanted to save money; I'd look for a BDP-95, non Darbee. Not a BDP-103. But I have. They go for like $100 less than a 105. Crazy!

Can the BDP-103 receive audio from Apple Airplay in iTunes?