USB 2.0 has more than enough bandwidth to handle the 24/192 limit of the Sabre32 inputs.
It would however be a "lost generation" product if it doesn't do DSD decoding over USB which IMHO is the way forward for hires downloads. Way more analog sounding than hires PCM
To be honest, I suspect the new Oppo's playback from a USB stick is unlikely to be as good sounding as using a Mac Mini with Audirvana Plus or a PC with similar tweaks.
I don't get your point. If they have a nice 2 channel DAC that they like, why bother with async USB on the 103? Just get a good USB-SPDIF device that's also async.
Why 105? Because the dCS doesn't play multi channel SACDs, nor DVDA nor Blurays.
The 103 is primarily designed as a digital transport so the DACs used in the design (and the analog subsystem) aren't great to start with.
It does have the HDMI inputs so it can upscale lower quality video sources to 4k using it's good 4k video subsystem. That IMHO makes sense if you have a good 4K chipset and a 4K display (which I expect is the only reason you'd upgrade from a 93 to 103.
Adding async USB to the 103 is a superfluous component that adds to the cost of materials but isn't particularly useful for what it is used for.
But is there really a large target market for a mediocre DAC with async USB connection?
But the better DACs in the 105? That would benefit from the async USB connection. It's why Oppo has 2 models in their line up. They used to have 3: 80, 83, 83SE and FWIW, I thought the 80 made the 83 redundant.
Like the 93, the 103's role is as a digital transport primarily so the analogue outputs/DAC section aren't as robust or as well designed as on the xx5 range.
@Hikmer, how was the 4k output though? Did you have any chance to compare it to the Sony S790's 4k upscaling?
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