The 105 has been the subject of the usual level of online hyperbole, to the point that I couldn't resist getting a home dem on one last night.

Clearly, the 105 is very well specced and as it can not only be a BD player, but also:
- Play FLAC files from a USB HDD, it could replace a Squeezebox
- Includes digital inputs, so is a kind of DAC
- Includes variable outputs, meaning that it can act as a pre-amp (within that, it has balanced stereo for the fronts, RCAs for the rest)
So in theory, if it was upto scratch, it could replace a streamer, BD player and AV processor.
In my case, I have a cheap Pioneer BD player, Squeezebox, 568.2mm and HD621. Given that I could probably sell that lot for twice the price of a new 105, had to be worth a try.

The test I ran was purely with music. For me that's always been more important that AV capabilities. If my system can do great music, and "ok" AV, I'm happy.
So in a direct comparison, with the 105 acting as source, thus:
1. Oppo via analogue balanced outputs directly to my power amp
2. Oppo via HDMI into the HD621/568.2mm, then onto my power amp
The result was actually really straight forward. The 105 was fine, nothing wrong with it at all. However, the HD621/568.2mm got substantially closer to the music and simply sounded a lot more realistic. I'm still struggling to think of appropriate terminology to describe the difference. The most obvious that comes to mind is that the 105 was looking at the same onion, but the Meridian kit had peeled 2-3 more layers off it on the way to viewing the core.

One thing that most certainly did confused me though was the comparison between the Oppo 105 as a source and my laptop (running foobar2000/wasapi), both using HDMI. The Oppo 105 had substantially more depth and bass weight. I couldn't understand how there could be THAT much difference, bearing in mind that in theory both were bit-perfect signals.

861v4/ID40/LPS, HD621, Roon, BAT VK-600se, Impulse Ta'us. Director/Heed Canamp with HD600s.