Oppo vs. Onkyo

[hawkfan]

I am currently working on my first home audio/theater system. I will have Nat Ps as the mains and will build the sub and rears later on. I'm looking at the Onkyo 604 as my receiver right now. It has HDMI in/outs and it works with 4ohm speakers. What I'm really confused about is the DVD/CD player. I want a player that's versatile and can play a lot of different formats but I also want decent sound and picture quality as well. I settled on the Onkyo sp dv504 at first for the sake of synergy with the Onkyo receiver and Onkyo's good reputation. Now I've learned about Oppo digital and am curious. The Oppo 981 looks really nice for the $230 price. The Onkyo sp dv504 looks pretty good at $300 as well. They both have HDMI. They both work with a number of different formats. I'm looking for something that does well with DVD picture quality as well as sound quality. I'm trying to keep the price as low as possible especially since I'm sure that this will not be the last evolution of my audio/video system.Thoughts?

[Ovation]

The Oppo has a stellar reputation for video and a good one for audio in its price range. The Onkyo might be a better audio player (haven't heard either one, so it's purely speculation on my part) but the Oppo is likely the better video player (as Onkyo's video performance has not, historically, been lauded nearly as much as the Oppo, particularly in the same price class). I would find out the return policies for each and, if you can, get both and do a comparison on your display.

[hawkfan]

Thanks. I never heard of Oppo before last week. They seem to do very well in comparison tests against much more expensive equipment. Anyway, thanks for your reply.

[natural]

I bought the Onkyo 604 to use. I plan to also build Nat-P "inwalls" and needed an amp that rates for 3 ohms per the thread in Missions Accomplished on the x-over which the Onk does rate 3 ohms @ 225 watts on the front channels.