To mod or not to mod, dac is the question

Personally, I've never quite understood the virtues of modding a budget piece of gear. sorta like those guys who take a honda civic and put 100k of aftermarket crap on it--at core it's still a honda civic and they could have bought a ferrari for the same $$. now, i understand that for many people, doing the modding is the point, but in this case, i assume you're not planning on doing your own soldering, so it's not about the challenge of a diy project. ergo, if your real objective is sound improvement, i'd vote to either get a dac or buy a better player.

What Ferrari costs as much as a Honda Civic with aftermarket crap on it. Not everyone is going to be able to afford a Ferrari, otherwise it wouldn't be a Ferrari if it were a dime a dozen. Even the Ferrari Manufacturers understand that, and purposely limit production.
Modification is a risky business, but it does give one the opportunity to replace some of the cost cutting by Manufacturers using cheaper parts. Just how many High End Super Expensive Audio Manufacturers, utilize Transport Disk Drives from Pioneer, Sony, and Phillips? Apparently, they are doing a little bit of "Modification" themselves, aren't they? What is the difference, apart from the very expensive costs?

The Oppo sounds plenty good enough as it comes from the factory. Your time and money would be better spent seeking out very high-quality source material and also spending the time, money, and effort in seeing to it that your ROOM is a good as it can be.

Anything else is just twiddlng about the edges - better sources and a better room will blow away any improvements you could make to the Oppo and/or adding a DAC. Plus, improving the sonic characterisitcs of the room will improve the sound of EVERY type of source material you have - CDs, DVDs, tuners, and vinyl.

-RW-

I also have a oppo bdp 83 and am wondering about whether to mod or go the dac route. firstly this is to be used in my second system so it will do video as well as audio duties but only in stereo. i already own a benchmark dac so could use this but that would restrict its use ie CD would sound OK but SACD/Blu ray would sound about the same which is not what i want. modding may cost $1000 but then it would go straight into my system and the differnce between red book and SACD etc should be obvious. what external dac is available to get anything out of SACD or Blu ray?? ie show off their strengths vs red book

Hey Audiogon,

Thanks All, some good words of wisdom by all, and some quite eloquently put I might add.

I have many room treatments, so been there done that, got the T-shirt.

I have even thought of just picking up a gently used Azur 840-C, which would be in the price range of the mod or DAC for my redbook playing, which is the bulk of my library.

My favorite listening practice is with the lights out at night so I can really "see" the imaging of the instruments/voices. That said, I have found that I enjoy a good dvd/blu-ray music performance disk much more that I expected, so I really would love to improve those sonics as well.

Of course I could be really audiophilly and get a modded DAC.... (-:

However, I do understand the civic/ferrari analogy. But I would intend to keep the Oppo for many years so investment/getting my money back on a resale is not an issue.

Thanks again and eargasms to all!