Just wondering why the oppo combo has so much demand. I recently heard it at a local headfi meet and was pretty disappointed. As with anything in audio, to each their own, but I was just wondering if I was missing something given all of the votes. Cheers!
Depends on what headphones you heard it with, whether they were balanced or single ended (Oppo puts out a LOT more power into balanced), if the music was lossless, etc. Lots of folks are getting great results with high end headphones: Fostex th900, Sennheiser hd800, Audeze LCD 2/3/x/xc, etc. The DAC has a resolving chip, the amp is clean and puts out a good amount of power, and the unit as a whole has a nice feature set & has gotten solid reviews from the likes of innerfidelity, et. al.
http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/affordable-and-transparent-oppo-ha-1-headphone-amplifierdac
"The HA-1 will let you hear exactly what your headphones sound like on their own. So you better make sure you like your headphones! "
I've said it once, but I'll say it again: people should really be specifying "headphone amps." When someone says amp, I, and most people that I know think of an integrated amplifier (I suppose a headphone amp is technically an integrated amplifier, as it does contain both a preamp and power amp, but you get my point), followed by a power amp.