My Oppo is a bit too bright

I get the impression that some feel that an external DAC is automatically better than a the one in a self contained player. While this might be true in some circumstances, I don't think it necessarily so in all circumstances. There can be some technical reasons that a separate DAC, such as perhaps having it's own power supply and distancing from internal motors, etc.. might have some advantages. On the other hand, some all in ones might have separate internal power supplies, and isolation measures built in. Unless the separate DAC has I2S input from a so equipped transport, there will be necessary conversion of outputs and inputs, which is just one area where jitter could be introduced by separating the stages. There seems to be way more available separate DACs than separate transports, which suggests to me that one is more profitable than the other. To buy an all in one player to bypass the internal DAC seems to me to be rather cost inefficient, and while possibly though not necessarily better.