I recieved my new OPPO BDP83 on Friday, but I did not have time to set it up until Saturday night. I still have a lot of listening and watching to do. I have to say so far it eliminates my old Sony from ever having a chance of being a good piece of equipment. The first thing I played on the oppo was some two channel music, and I have to say I was not expecting to hear as much of a difference as I did. I have been contemplating buying a high end cd player for a long time, and the oppo took that idea away. Two channel music sounds amazing through it. The seperation, detail, and bass are 10 steps above either of my previous sony players. This player makes cd's that I thought sounded muddy and dated sound like a completely different recording.

I used gonks setup guide for the 970 for all of the initial setting for sound and video, but I did end up chaninging a few things.I have noticed using the 5.1 channel direct outputs for sacd and dolby true hd that I am lacking a lot of bass, which has never been a problem in the past. The adjustments I have made so far are that I turned the subwoofer from 1/4 turn up to 1/2 turn on the back of the unit. I also went into the sound settings on the oppo and turned the front, center, and surround speaker trim level from 10 down to 2 and left the subwoofer at a trim level of 10. I also left the distance level of all of the speaker at a max level of 12'. I am sometimes finding myself going into the 970 menu and turning the subwoofer up a notch or two from the 0 level. As far as the sound quality other that the minor bass issue it sounds great, especially the dolby true hd and the dts hd. I do not have a lot of multi channel content just a few sacd's and I have not done enough critical listenig on them to say weather this player is a ton better than my previous sony, but they do sound great.

The picture of the oppo vs. the sony I had is several times better. The picture is much smoother and movements look more realistic. i love the fast loading time and the menus are very easy to use. watching certain scenes of mocies I found to look jumpy and harsh on my sony have almost disappared with the oppo. I have to blame what is left of picture problem on the lcd tv.

Final conclusion this is the best universal player on the marked for the price hands down.
If you are thinking about purchasing one just do it because you will not regret it.

Oh by the way this player looks awesome. The biuld quality is top notch. I love the clean machined metal front and the buttons look like something off of a piece of equipment costing 5 times the price. I am also very impressed with quality of the power cable, it is almost as big as the one off of my model 755.

If anyone has any suggestions about getting my bass setting correct I would gladly appreciate them. the problem does not exsist when using only the two channel out, but only the 5.1 dirrect output. maybe I am missing something obvius?