It's mostly that your pre/pro is likely to have better decoding and DACs than the HD-disc player. The real purist wouldn't care where it was decoded (and probably couldn't hear a difference) as long as all decoders are equal. I suspect that 192/24 PCM does allow a pretty pristine full fidelity signal to be transferred. That said, I want to make the decision where I decode!

I am less that certain about this but doesn't DSD eventually get converted to PCM in the SACD player prior to DA conversion? I always thought that Sony was just jerking us around with a new copyguard approach because at the end of the you go through a DAC. If I'm wrong somebody please explain. I have some outstanding SACDs so I see nothing wrong with whatever they are doing