Timtim...........I was in the same dilema and ended up buying a good Universal player that played everything but BluRay. I then sent it to Chris Johnson of Part ConneXion and for very little money had it modded to an essentially world class universal player! The only thing BluRay is good for is BluRay! There are so many DVD that have fantastic picture when modded like this, the difference is subtle!
So in the end, you can pick up a $5k to $10K player on here used for $1K to $2K and mod it to world class audio and video, (but not bluray) or you can pick up an $800 Oppo and mod it up to $2K and have just that, an Oppo that plays everything including Bluray.......but will not touch the other player in audio reproduction, and it's still and Oppo!!
Personally I'm sticking with the modded Universal players like the Esoteric or Faroudja, and waiting for a format like the Meridian Sooloos to come out that also plays video!
So in the end, you can pick up a $5k to $10K player on here used for $1K to $2K and mod it to world class audio and video, (but not bluray) or you can pick up an $800 Oppo and mod it up to $2K and have just that, an Oppo that plays everything including Bluray.......but will not touch the other player in audio reproduction, and it's still and Oppo!!
Personally I'm sticking with the modded Universal players like the Esoteric or Faroudja, and waiting for a format like the Meridian Sooloos to come out that also plays video!