Oppo 83 SE Sound in Absolute Terms ?

The stock Oppo 83se is reported to sound pretty good for a $900 one-box-does-it-all solution. You may want to be more specific with your question regarding the price range of players (or specific players) you are trying to compare to. One place to start would be to look at the information out there about how the stock 83se compares with itself, after it has been modded.

There are several well regarded companies modding the Oppo 83 SE for the purpose of providing high quality two channel (or multi-channel) audio. Check out ModWright, EVS, and RAM. If you believe these companies are achieving significant performance improvements by modding the stock player, your answer to how the stock 83se compares with "truly stellar" players would have to be "not so great." However, the potential is apparently there by upgrading op-amps, power supplies, clock, and output stage. At the top of the heap (at least price-wise), Ayre's DX-5 at about $10K starts life as an Oppo 83.

I've heard the Ayre dx-5 and it is not a ten times improvement over the stock unit. Maybe 1.5 times, but that is relative. I think the stock 83se, left alone will please most listeners. Remember the hi end business model, which is a unit must retail for ten times the material cost, so Ayre needs recover its cost, which essentially is a stock 83se with about $50 in extra parts. Also remember that Ayre will not play blu-ray audio any better then the stock unit. Blu-ray audio is the future.

Buconero117...i don't know where you got your information from but that is absolutely false. I don't own any Ayre products nor am I affilated with the company in any way shape or form but your statement is clearly either uninformed or deliberately misleading. The Ayre DX-5 is not a stock Oppo 83SE with $50 in extra parts. The only thing the Ayre unit uses from the Oppo is the transport and the video board, everything else related to the audio section of the player from the DAC (which is based on the DAC in the QB-9 but this one will be able to support 24/192 through asynchronous USB input), as well as the analog output stage is completely redone. I don't know where you get your "$50 in extra parts" from but just look at this link for a complete description and you will realize that is clearly off base. So please if you are going to talk about a product with seeming authority, get your facts straight. Here is a decription of the Ayre DX-5 and what is different from the base Oppo BDP-83 SE: http://www.soundstage.com/editrl/edit131.htm. By the way, the Ayre unit could very well be just a minor step up from the Oppo (as Mitch2 describes), I have no idea as I have not heard it but lets at least describe it accurately.

Jfz...I own the Oppo BDP-83 SE as well as an ARC Ref CD7, clearly at opposite ends of the pricing spectrum. The Oppo is a great unit for the price and I would say it holds its own against units in the $2K range as a general statement (I am sure you can find many in that range that better it and many that are materially worse) but in my system on CD playback (which is what the ARC CD 7 supports), there is no comparison. The ARC CD7 clearly betters it on any aspect of audio reproduction you wish to analyze. When I compare hi-rez SACDs on the Oppo vs the CD counterpart on the ARC, the gap narrows a smidgeon but not by much. The ARC is still clearly superior.

Buconero117...you may have been thinking about the Lexicon BD-30, which indeed is a stock Oppo BDP-83 with a fancier chassis but with a $3K price tag. Here's a blog from Chris Martens on the Lexicon BD-30 and the subsequent controversy on this which you can read about in the responses to the blog: http://www.avguide.com/blog/first-listen-lexicon-bd-30-universal-blu-ray-player. Audioholics.com broke the story about the Lexicon BD-30. All the best.