Is the Oppo-105 with Modwright modifications


As good as they say it is. I was talking to a dealer today and he said you can't have a state of the art product when you start with crap. He said the Saber DAC's were junk and I'd be wasting my money doing the Modwright upgrades. On the other hand I have heard people rave about it. What is your take on this player and the Modwright upgrades? Am I better off buying a high-end used CD player without a warranty. I like the Idea of a modded player but I don't want to be disappointed and take a big loss.
taters
I like TUC's work...I can definitely say his modd'd 83 is far better than the 95 I now own. (the only reason I got it is because after a number of years the modd'd 83 broke and I was concerned that shipping it, fixing it, etc with TUC) would end up being a waste if the darn thing broke again. So I got a demo 95 stock locally for a huge discount (less than shipping/repairs of the 83).

Compared to 83 TUC...well, for me, the 95 did not compare well. Fortunately, i use the Oppo 95 for video only...and even on video, i use the digital out to my DAC.
Melville,

Good luck with your mods...please post when your unit comes back...i bet its amazing!
I have played a few different CDs and SACDs on the TUC upgraded 105, and it does sound better, and certainly different than what I remember of the stock unit. At this point, however, it does not sound better than my EVS modded
Oppo 83. In all fairness, the 83 is fully burned-in (a couple of years of play). The TUC 105 is specified to improve all the way up to 600 hours. I will keep you posted.
Hi Melville,

In a way, I am not [entirely] surprised by that...the modded 83 I had was excellent and killed my current stock 95...but the 83 stopped functioning and I was honestly afraid of paying big labor costs to fix it only to have it break again.

Since I only use 95 for video and use the digital out to my DAC, I am fine with this. But that modd'd 83 was REMARKABLE...and I felt did a ton to the original stock 83 sound...much more than it seems a 95 vs 83 upgrade makes. Nevertheless, the 105 is supposed to be fundamentally superior platform so in any event you've got the 'best' of the Oppo series and the mods. Hopefully it gets better over the next few hundred hours...but if not, you've still got amazing sound no doubt. Enjoy!
I considered TUC when I got my 105D, but I couldn't get a handle on precisely what they did. They sounded kind of vague with band-aid type mods versus gut changes by EVS. Ric explained exactly what he would do and it made sense to me at that time.With over 500 hours on my player,I know that I made the right choice.