I've called Philips support (Italy here) and their technician said both versions (Retail & OEM/bulk) use the same hardware (apart from the front bezel).
However I didn't mentioned cross-flashing ...
He gave me this link to download the firmware for OEM/bulk versions of the Philips drives:
www.p4c.philips.com He added that the firmware for bulk/OEM version (PBDV1640) is due out very soon.
I'm going to buy one of these drives, because of the FANTASTIC ability to bypass perfectly all known AUDIO copy protection. I don't want to trash my ORIGINAL cd's.... prefer using a good backup!
Hope this bulk version will retain that ability!!!
Anyway I'd like CDRInfo to test it and compare the 2 versions...
More about this OEM version: is it noisy??? I'm found of silence...