I definately agree that the 550 is the best for the money. One small problem that I didn't notice too many people wrote about. I cannot play audio CD's that I have burned. They play in my car's CD player, they play  in a regular CD player, in a portable sony disc man, even in a crappy, old  RCA DVD player with DIVX but not in this expensive sony? Why is that? Is it  an oversight by sony or do they want us to go out and buy one of their cd  players? I figure I already have the fiber optics hooked up to the dvd  player, why not use that> Also, I disagree with others about regular  (non-CD-R) audio cd's. I think the 550 does a great job playing them. All  in all, I would definately recommend this player to anyone in the market,  unless you like mp3's off the net and you want to make your own cd's. I  would look for a DVD player that also reads CD-R's. They're out there. If  you know of a solution or have any questions or comments, please feel free  to write me at sbaschn@yahoo.com