Well I can say this, just go to the local best buy or whoever and give the S550 a shot for the hell of it
But as for the Oppo 983 vs. 980 audio transport wise it would be very strange to have anything significant, like I said I do understand the 983 had a tiny bit more attention put into the DACS power supply but identical from the transport side supposedly
Unless oppo completely changed it out and is just not saying Only way to really find out would be calling one of the numerous modders that do the oppos and ask are they all coming with the exact same units in them as oppo claims. I can see that the 980 was a little more tweaked when I adjusted the internal video processing, I actually reduced brightness and contrast in the 980 h, the 983 was pretty good just on the standard settings. As for the differences vs. the new sonys, they don't have or need anything done in the video, they just go straight to 1080p / 24 frame.. Perfect.. Film, video, standard DVD, Blu ray no matter its excellent, but the DISPLAY will need some serious tweaking because I found now all the adjustments are on the flat panel side at this point not the player..
Oppo had some cool tools built in which are not necessary on the sony now I found at the panel Noise reduction either off or just on an adjustment of +1 is good Brightness about 50% standard, Contrast at about 60%, Black level +1, and Gamma about +1 beat out all the settings adjusted in the oppo. So yeah it will all be dependent on the full system I am sure and how far one is gonna go vs. another.
Also a good question for yourself is, OPPO sends a GREAT HDMI cable with the unit, the panasonic did not come with one at all, and you might have had some Hack job Monster cable or even cheaper cable running the panasonic, the cable Oppo uses seems as it is a generic but it is not I forget the company that makes it but its about the best cable you can get your hands on, I am using that HDMI cable still with the sony as it does not come with one either.. There are many threads on oppos supplied HDMI and how superior they are to some other cables, It is by a company I can't think of the name of and can be found to order separate or from oppo even by themselves if you did chose to not keep the player, but keep that cable!! This could be a bigger difference right there, I am not sure.
Unless oppo completely changed it out and is just not saying Only way to really find out would be calling one of the numerous modders that do the oppos and ask are they all coming with the exact same units in them as oppo claims. I can see that the 980 was a little more tweaked when I adjusted the internal video processing, I actually reduced brightness and contrast in the 980 h, the 983 was pretty good just on the standard settings. As for the differences vs. the new sonys, they don't have or need anything done in the video, they just go straight to 1080p / 24 frame.. Perfect.. Film, video, standard DVD, Blu ray no matter its excellent, but the DISPLAY will need some serious tweaking because I found now all the adjustments are on the flat panel side at this point not the player..
Oppo had some cool tools built in which are not necessary on the sony now I found at the panel Noise reduction either off or just on an adjustment of +1 is good Brightness about 50% standard, Contrast at about 60%, Black level +1, and Gamma about +1 beat out all the settings adjusted in the oppo. So yeah it will all be dependent on the full system I am sure and how far one is gonna go vs. another.
Also a good question for yourself is, OPPO sends a GREAT HDMI cable with the unit, the panasonic did not come with one at all, and you might have had some Hack job Monster cable or even cheaper cable running the panasonic, the cable Oppo uses seems as it is a generic but it is not I forget the company that makes it but its about the best cable you can get your hands on, I am using that HDMI cable still with the sony as it does not come with one either.. There are many threads on oppos supplied HDMI and how superior they are to some other cables, It is by a company I can't think of the name of and can be found to order separate or from oppo even by themselves if you did chose to not keep the player, but keep that cable!! This could be a bigger difference right there, I am not sure.