The best CD Player for the money

OPPO universal cd player. cd, sacd, dvd-audio,hdcd. Really sounds good especially the sacd, dvd-audio. Under $200 for the player. No it isn't built like a battleship, but for those who are on a budget this is a great sounding cd player, period. read reviews in absolute sound mag.

The Oppo is a great player for a low budget system, once you've heard a real high-end system Oppo's, modified or not, are not an option, period.

Threaders: Oppo has been selected by TAS as the budget digital component of the year again --That's 2 years running.

In order to enjoy the superb digital, the unit must be calibrated to your musical taste using a PC, LapTop , keyboard and monitor. Don't do that and no matter what the unit offers you will never hear it.

I suggest that's the musical key the reviewers fall in love with...

Coming up on the 7th anniversary of this thread, we are all curious what you actually got in the end...

Jazze22, what do you say?

Best for the money? I guess it depends on how much money.

But for my money, it's $169 for the Oppo DV-980H. I just took delivery on one last Thursday. For the last 10 months I've listened to LPs exclusively because I could no longer stand to listen to CDs or even SACDs.

Granted, I didn't have a really expensive player, but I had two that were considered over-achievers--the Philips SA-963 and the Sony SC-2000ES, both in the $500-600 range. I have also listened in extensive audions to $3000-5000 Linn and Musical Fidelity players at stores.

Since I got this Oppo, although I'm still spinning and enjoying LPs, I'm also really enjoying CDs...I'd say, "enjoying CDs again," but I never enjoyed them like I am enjoying them on the Oppo now. It also acquits itself really well on DVD-As and SACDs. I like its rendition of SACDs better than my Sony or Philips, and I was *really* surprised at how much I like what it does with DVD-A. My wife and I were blown away by the Beatles/Cirque de Soleil surround DVD-A "Love" remix. My wife (a huge Beatles fan) decidedly did NOT like this disk when I played it on the Philips. She loved it on the Oppo. It's THAT much different.

I also had fun listening to HDCD-encoded CDs for the very first time, and they were also wonderful.

The Oppo DV-980H sounds SO good on CDs, HDCD-encoded CDs, DVD-As, and SACDs, that at $169 I'd consider it a gift. And you can't get a much better price/performance ratio than that.