I'm considering getting a new DVD player. While we'll use it for watching movies, I'm more concerned with the audio quality of it. It will be used in a two-channel system. I have never heard one of these players before, but am alright taking a leap of faith based on what the media has to say about them.
So, knowing that audio quality is my primary concern, will I hear a difference between these two players? The rest of my system is older H/K, Acurus and Magnepan. I think I can hear things others typically don't, and I pay attention to details.

Not having compared the two myself, I can't say what kind of a difference, but they don't have identical audio stages.

I have a 970 and the sound it delivers kills just about anything else at the price and up to about $500.00. Certainly ate my Marantz CD67SE for breakfast.

I have the Oppo 981 and am quite happy w/ it. The other day, I saw an affordable upscaling dvd player at Costco (Phillips - $60). Do you have any opinion on that one vs. the Oppo? I'm thinking of buying it soon for my parents since it's pretty inexpensive. TIA.

P.S. Please excuse the thread hi-jack, Pat.<ul><li><a href="http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11249915&amp;search=dvd%20player&amp;M o=8&amp;cm_re=1_en-_-Top_Left_Nav-_-Top_search&amp;lang=en-US&amp;Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&amp;Sp=S&amp;N=5000043&amp;whse=BC&amp;Dx=m ode+matchallparti

FWIW
Also plays DVD audio and has an optical/ toslink output.
I run oppo hdmi out to an hdmi switcher thru to the tv and optical to the preamp (home theater) for the audio.
If I want the audio to play through the home theater system, I just turn down the tv sound.
Don't know if this is the proper way or the way most folks configure their system but it works great for me.
Cable box, Oppo dvd and Apple tv to hdmi switcher connected to the TV... then I run the optical "out" of each of these devices into the home theater preamp which has three optical inputs.
I guess a negative may be that optical can only handle 5.1 sound, but I'll live with that.
My .002

The 981 has the Faroudja chip which is supposed to be an upgrade but some people also like to avoid it like the plague. Is there any reason to go with a 981 over a 980?

until I saw the Phillips for so cheap at Costco. My parents don't have anything fancy, just Comcast HD cable and Mitsu RPTV (1080p)...no HT receiver/speaker set up.

Still deciding, but thanks for the input and for sharing your set up.

I have the 980 and I couldn't praise it enough. LoTR looks and sounds absolutely incredible on it - I would dare say on par with many HD-DVD movies I've watched.

not much more than a $60 DVD player, even though it has upscaling. Upscaling doesn't really improve picture quality over the original disc information (it can't), but when done well can help reproduce a picture with fewer artifacts in certain areas.

The Oppo machines not only produce really impressive video quality (if you want better, just buy your movies in HD and a suitable HD player), but they play just about any type of disc you throw at them, including DVD-Audio and SACD. I've had burnt DVD discs sent to me from all over the world and the Oppo plays all of them, where as my other DVD players (Philips, Toshiba, Panasonic, Sony) didn't want to know in most instances.

What Oppo did was delve into the workings of all the budget universal DVD players and picked the model they could do most the most effective, inexpensive tweaks to. They buy them in bulk at a good price (probably about $15.00 each), add some nifty components, abserve and measure for quality performance, send out examples to influencial bodies and look what happened.
Brilliant.

<i>"Upscaling doesn't really improve picture quality over the original disc information (it can't), but when done well can help reproduce a picture with fewer artifacts in certain areas.

The Oppo machines not only produce really impressive video quality...but they play just about any type of disc you throw at them, including DVD-Audio and SACD."</i>

Thanks again, I appreciate it.

Toshiba's HD-DVD offerings.

HD-A3 can be easily found for $100 -- and it does a good job of upscaling SD DVDs and handles CD audio nicely due to SHARC processors (I am not an music guy so I am going by others reviews).

HD-A3 can be easily found for $150 -- and it adds a better chip for upscaling SD DVDs (Anchor Bay chip). As well as other features.

They don't play DIVX and are region-free only for HD DVD (SD DVD they are Region coded). But they are excellent values now for anyone looking for a good upscaling DVD player.

Oh -- and you get like 7+ free HD DVDs. 2 in the box and 5 by mail.

To me it's a no brainer.

I have the HD-A2 and love it for both HD and as an SD upconverter.