best audio from a Blu Ray player

The Pioneer elite players are very good sound quality wise, as is the Oppo. The new Denon player, which is a true universal player like the Oppo, is supposed to be fantastic, but it is considerably more expensive than the other players mentioned

The Oppo BDP-83 does sound very good, both over HDMI (where it is extremely good), but also over 7.1 single ended (RCA) output. I've tested this against Denon 3800 in my own home, and the Denon is great, but just matchting the Oppo (actually, in some cases, I even preferred the Oppo)...

Now, the new Denon A1u (with a billion letters and numbers following, my can't Denon stick to easy to remember model names?!) does beat out the Oppo, it's better, but you can buy 7 (!) Oppo's for one Denon and I most certainly wouldn't say it's THAT much better. What it really comes down to is how much better does it need to be in order for you to justify it to your wallet? Money no object, get the Denon...

Does anyone have any experience with having the Oppo player modified to improve audio performance?

Knowing you're coming from the wonderful world of stereo music listening... let me just point out that if you're going to listen to music through your HT system then none of the suggestions above will sound as good as a dedicated audiophile CD player. (And yes I've heard the Denons, and yes, my Cary 303/300 is better on Redbook too, although it don't play SACD or DVD-A.)

There are several mods available for the Oppo, but it's a good transport so I'd just spend the $$s on a good outboard DAC.

Compared to a good eddicated CD player, the Oppo's just OK on Redbook CD though much better than that on SACD, but it's definitely on the level of a budget player for CD playback. I wouldn't listen through the Oppo for CDs unless I ran it through an outboard DAC (or maybe the DACs on a AVR like the Arcam AVR350 or AVR600.

For movie soundtracks, the Oppo BDP-83 is just fine, the Blu-Ray video is grand and its DVD upconversion is excellent. It can also be made to be region free - what's not to like? No need to spend more. But as a CD player, it won't hold a candle to your Cal L15 - it's a completely different flavor - and opposite flavor.