Best Blu Ray video and for 2 channel transport?

Wow, Undertow, sounds like you'll have the ultimate affordable BD shootout on your hands pretty soon. The Sony's sound like a good way to go, especially the s550, which seems to address my pet peeve (no memory). Thanks for all the feedback. I'll look forward to hearing how all the comparos go. I'm delighted with the Oppo, but it would be good to know possible directions to go if BluRay finally starts to draw interesting titles. I sure have no intention of paying more than $400 for a player and the S550 is currently running around $320 online (doesn't seem like the Amazon vendors are out of stock) so if it's as good as you think it might be, that'd be a winner in my estimation. I can see why some folks might prefer the punchier picture on the Panasonic - it's kind of like candy. Or in film terms (for those who actually remember what film is), it's like Velvia or Kodachrome vs. Provia, Ektachrome or Kodacolor (the later being a bit extreme). I was never a Velvia guy, and almost never set my digital camera to "Vivid" to mimic that kind of film. Personal taste. Good to hear that my suspicions of an odd digital artifact were not in my imagination on the Panny. I look forward to hearing more of your observations.

Oppo scores a 94 out of 100 in 2 channel transport duties

Sony scores about a 87-88 out of 100

However to be fair the oppo had a better power cord as I don't have an adapter yet for the sony type connection, and at first we found out that the 2 coax cables we used varied a little in sound as well after swapping those a few times between transports..

In the end the sony has good potential, soundstage on the oppo is a little more vast and refined, the sony was a tiny bit more sparkle on top with a little punchier sound, but not quite as deep as the oppo. oppo is a tiny more refined, again though without fair cable equality, as literally the sony had to run up against a 14 gauge audiophile type cable on the oppo it only has a like very cheap 20 gauge or 18 gauge "Boombox" cable that comes with a walkman back in the 80's!

Also to be fair the oppo had some serious hours of use on it, about 2 years doing some pretty heavy lifting so it was not a surprise it was a little bit opened up sounding.

I can't totally say the sony is at total fault, but the oppo was a little more relaxed natural sound... I am still moving forward to try a Sony 550s as a full blu ray transport for 2 channel system for the time being. And I have a good power cord coming to work out the kinks hopefully with the body of sound coming of the sony, it still did not lack to far behind but it was a little bit drier presentation, I hope to get it tuned in with some burn in, and some cable changes, I don't think they will be very distinguishable at that point.

Oppo scores a 94 out of 100 in 2 channel transport duties

Sony scores about a 87-88 out of 100

That's pretty darn close and I'd guess the discrepancies you mention (power cord and burn-in) may account for some of that difference. Are you using an Oppo 983H for comparison. Also differences may be system dependent, and dependent on the DAC you use. Anyway, I was astonished that a transport could actually make that much difference, but certainly the difference between the Panasonic and the Oppo was significant in my system. Sounds like the Sony 550 will be a great choice for you. This should be very useful information for anyone considering a reasonably priced BluRay player at this point in the game. Many thanks for posting your impressions.

Also I found out that the sony has priority settings for the digital outs... I had it selected to HDMI vs. Coax, I did not know if this would make a difference or not... I will check it out on the new machine when I receive it.. Also there is like an audio output reduction mode, supposedly it eliminates distortion further by simply lowering the voltage coming in from the transport on the sony, but I don't know yet if this simply effects the actual Dacs power output or from all digital feeds as well... Again gonna have to be checked out. Also something that should effect the transport out is its ability to be manually chosen on the sony to output 16/44 or 24/96... I have heard this change by just switching on a movie thru hdmi, the 24/96 softened up a bit... Might be the ticket depending on the source material so I don't know if this will effect the sound Via standard CD...

So anyway a few more things to toy with once the sony gets settled, no doubt its possible in 50 60 hours of use it can in fact open up a little more as well...The oppo went thru a little of this at first too.

The oppo 980h and the 983 are identical in transport applications, I had both, the 983 is also identical on the DAC analog outs, however the 983 used a little further isolation of the dac probably with some RF type shield or something, and also has some supposedly better capacitors on the outputs of the DAC... Whether this was hugely a big enough difference seems not many found a big deal, but to say the 983 might have a little better bass due to the capacitor change.

The oppo 980h and the 983 are identical in transport applications, I had both, the 983 is also identical on the DAC analog outs

So are you currently comparing the output from a 980H or a 983H?