[Brain Sturgeon]

I've been thinking of replacing my Panasonic DMP-BD50 recently-- although it has been an excellent performer, it's not the fastest thing in the world, and the HDMI handshaking with the unit is kinda iffy. I've had some issues with handshaking between the Panny and my front projectors when switching from 1080p/24 to 1080p/60 which I never had with my PS3 or DMP-BD10. It doesn't seem to play well with my HDMI switch. Plus it doesn't do SACD or DVDA-- not a huge deal since I use my Classé for DVDA, but SACD would be a nice addition.

In considering new players, the new Oppo is "universal" and looks like a winner and I just got an email invite to purchase one. I was about to pull the trigger when I came across a discussion of "high end" BD players (Pioneer's BDP-09FD, Denon's AVP-A1HDCI) versus the Oppo on AVS. Although pretty much everyone thinks that the video output will be identical between units, the thought was that these might be better for those who use the player's D to A converters/analogue outputs instead of HDMI for LPCM or bitstream. Anyways, the usual discussion of "is it really worth it" and "is there really a difference" cropped up, and the topic is pretty muddy right now. I don't think I would consider the Elite, since it's not "universal", so that leaves it between the Oppo and the Denon.

Anyways, I'm having some second thoughts about the Oppo, although given its price point, I don't think I can lose. But part of me is thinking maybe I should just skip it and go for the gusto as I don't think anyone thinks the Denon will be any worse than the Oppo, and it might just be better. $4k better? I don't know... I guess that's why I started this thread.

So, how about it? Any AVP-A1HDCI owners out there to comment? I think zepherman was thinking about this unit in another thread about the new Flagship Denon to go with his AVP-A1HDCI which would seem to be the ideal combo, but that was a while ago before Denon increased the MSRP to $4.5k.

Thanks for your thoughts in advance!