I use a Yamaha DVD-S1500 as my audio player: multichannel analog output for DVD-Audio and SACD, plus digital output for CD's. It's DVD-Audio performance is pretty respectable. SACD I've always felt was perhaps a little short-changed by the S1500. I went back and forth a bit between the S1500's DAC and my old Model 950's DAC for CD listening, but when I got my 990 last year I settled pretty quickly into digital output and upsample mode for CD's. Originally I bought the S1500 to do everything, but its frustrating user interface and the Oppo 971's great DVI video performance caused me to shift to the Oppo for Video DVD's.

Arcam's site drives me nuts (hard to find information on their products and much of the information that is available is in PDF form only), but your Arcam CD73 looks like a very nice player. In the case of that player (a pure CD player rather than the DVD players being discussed elsewhere in this thread, and a price tag that I've seen listed as anywhere from $700 to $1200), I'd expect the player's analog outputs to at least match and likely top a digital connection to the 990's DAC - after all, a dedicated CD player only has to have two channels of D/A (rather than the 990's eight) and requires no video circuitry. Once you start dealing with players that support audio CD exclusively, the potential benefits of using the players' analog outputs start to increase as you move the price up toward (or beyond) the 990's cost.