My other experiences with SACD players are the same as AvFan. I had a Pioneer 45A and the 980H. I never cared for the 45A SACD playback. the 980H was better and being unable to do a direct A/B comaprison I would say they are very close if not the same.

I have to agree with gonk about the 83's analog section, I definitely feel the analog audio is better than the Sony S550.

And the Oppo's operation is so much nicer from load times to display to setup.

As I recall the Pioneer 45A I purchased in 2004 was one of the first reasonably priced DVD players that would also play SACD and DVD-A. Setup with my 990 was straight forward using its analog inputs. I have just a few SACDs and DVD-A discs but these formats seemed a like novelty to me after I listened to them on the 45A and so I didn't go out of my way to purchase many more. When I wanted an upconverting DVD player I chose the Oppo DV-980H universal player and I debated whether to keep the analog connections between the Oppo and my 990. I did and when I played them there was a significant improvement in sound. I didn't need to do an A-B comparison to recognize the Oppo sounded significantly better than the Pioneer.

As I noted I've not played any SACDs or DVD-A discs on the BPD-83 but I look forward to giving some a spin. A direct comparison between the 980H and 83 would be difficult because the 990 has only one set of 7.1 analog inputs so I've packed up the 980H. Based upon Gonk's observations I'm looking forward to listening to some SACDs with the BDP-83. Who knows, I may join mzpro5 and start buying SACDs.

I was just thinking about what DVD-A/SACD players I've owned. There was a DVD-A player (the Panasonic RA60 that I bought in 2002), but I didn't have both formats until I got the Yamaha S1500 in September 2004. The S1500 had a pretty decent analog section coupled to a truly dreadful user interface, which is why it became a purely DVD-A/SACD player in May 2005 (the OPPO 971H was a much better DVD/CD player, with digital output to the 990). Then there were the 981HD, 980H, and 983H. The 981HD's analog section was probably not quite as good as the S1500's, but it was a quite satisfactory all-in-one solution. The 980H improved on the 981HD nicely, with the 983H offering some subtle benefits (very slight, at least to my ear). The BDP-83 tops them all, though. It won't matter to folks who are using the HDMI output for audio, but for everybody who isn't yet ready to upgrade their receiver or surround processor (and there are plenty of folks in that category) it's very good news indeed.
Keep an eye out for music titles on Blu-ray, too. There's not a lot of studio stuff out there, but there is a fairly decent array of concert titles out there. TrueHD, DTS-HD MA, or straight PCM are all capable of equaling DVD-A and SACD.

I hadn't really thought of the audio on the Blu-ray concerts, but it makes sense they should sound equal to SACD and DVD-A with the uncompressed audio formats.

One question about SACD playback: For discs that contain CD and SACD, does the BDP-83 output SACD via its 7.1 analog if the audio setup has the preference set to play the CD portion of the disc? In other words, do I need to change the BDP-83 setup and specify SACD playback to turn on the full array of 7.1 analog outputs? I have set up an Activity on my Harmony One to play SACD/DVD-A discs but it just uses the 990's 7.1 input but it doesn't change the BDP-83's setup.

All outputs play the same layer of an SACD at the same time, because that's the only layer that the drive is reading. I leave the SACD Priority to SACD Multichannel, because I see no reason to listen to the CD layer when I have the ability to play the SACD layer.

I don't know if the poor quality of SACDs prior to an Oppo is exclusive to Pioneer or not. I had a Pioneer DV-563A for years. Dual format with DVD-Audio and SACD but SACDs were always greatly inferior to the DVD-Audio quality on the Pioneer. I had assumed it was the nature of the SACD format. When I replaced the Pioneer with the Oppo 890H it was a night and day difference with SACDs (DVD-Audio continues to sound great). CDs even sounded better when played through the Oppo analog to feed my 950. Oppos 5.1 (& 7.1) matrix for stereo sources is very impressive. In fact, I sometimes use the Oppo analog feed for movies too. Of course with the 950 we only get 5.1 through analog inputs. I still prefer DVD-Audio sound quality to SACD but that could be a whole different debate.

One problem that early universal players were said to had with SACD was related to converting DSD to PCM (since most lacked DSD-capable DAC's). The Pioneers in particular were frequently noted as being better with DVD-Audio than SACD (even though both represent lossless digital audio formats). In addition, both DVD-A and SACD are subject to the specific surround mixes used - I've found that some sound more pleasing than others. These days, the debate over whether DSD output is better than PCM tends to end in a draw.

The 980H is a very nice player, especially for the money. Mine is still hanging around as a player with my RR2150, and the analog output serves me well.

I did an interesting comparison this morning and I wonder if any other Gunslingers have done the same. I have a moderately priced Sony turntable with its original factory cartridge and I compared the BDP-83's analog output to the turntable. My subject CD/Vinyl was Jack Johnson's In Between Dreams and my 990 was set to bypass for both inputs. Other than the random clicks and pops on the vinyl I preferred the vinyl over the CD but they were very very close. I thought I heard a wider soundstage with the vinyl and vocals were slightly more pronounced on the CD.

Any other Gunslingers done a comparison between vinyl and the BDP-83's stereo analog?

Maybe someone can help. On the PIP feature of Band of Brothers, "In the Words of Easy Company" I can get the PIP picture but no audio for the PIP. Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong. Thanks.

I tried the SAP but when I push that I get the red circle with a line in the top left corner.

Do you have secondary audio disabled in the player's setup menu?