I own a Marantz DV-9600 (and a DV-9500) which has a smashing and very musical sound in SACD and DVDA mode, with i-link offering a very small improvement.
However, handshaking i-link with the SR-9600 often failed, forcing a reset of both units.
Movie sound is also quite good, can't remember how the Pio fared here...

The PQ is also quite good, with a slight improvement in hdmi over Component.
But as I remember the Pioneer DV-989 (it has a different name in the USA) was even better in hdmi (but not as good as the M. in Component).
This is strange, since it's rumoured that Pio makes all the Denon and Marantz video boards...
That said, even the expensive DV-9600 shows artefacts sometimes (greenish patches in near-black).
But this may relate to less-than-perfect black settings...that's not very easy; using the AVIA disc leads to exaggerated brightness in my case.