My experience with the BD83 and mods is this. I purchased the stock BP83 and though it sounded poorly at best at audio, is was/is great on video. Then the BDP83SE came out so I gave my 83 to Oppo who upgraded it to the SE version. Audio performance leaped almost in the league of my Neko D100 stand alone DAC. Being happy but never content with audio I gave my Oppo SE to Rick Schultz and for $250 made this a near reference level player IMHO. More mods can be performed and at the time, this made sense. Rick likes to perform mods in stages. He has a wealth of knowledge and will share what he knows willingly. He's also constantly tweaking his mods in an effort to make them better.
Standalone DAC's generally are in another league and work well depending upon the level of your system.
Good Luck
Standalone DAC's generally are in another league and work well depending upon the level of your system.
Good Luck