I've been reading the posts on this thread and just wanted to add my thoughts on a couple of things.

First, to get the true resolution that DVD-A/SACD is offering to the music listening public, those discs can't go through any processing once they've been decoded by the player. Unfortunately for most, this means you lose your bass management, speaker distance settings, delays, and any other DSP your receiver/pre-amp may add. Some hi-res players can offer bass management because their chipset supports the higher resolution but you'll notice this only on DVD-A. On a well recorded SACD, the whole point, at least to me, is that the audio never touches a PCM source. This is what the main point of the format is all about.

Second, if you eliminate the center channel, you're ruining the sound engineer's mix. The multi-channel format includes information in the center channel so the engineers have been using it. Not using a center defeats the current "state of the art" in the format. I own a couple multi-channel SACD recordings and the center channel plays an important role in all of them.

Finally, I own the Sony DVP-NS500V and I love the sound it puts out. I have it hooked up to the "5.1 direct" input on my 1050. The combination sounds great. I'm also lucky enough to have basically equal speaker distances in my set-up and I'm using the same speakers (M&K K-5s) across the front three channels. The difference, to my ears, between SACD and CD is amazing. The difference between the using the direct inputs and the CD inputs on the 1050 is just as amazing. You really have to take the DSP out of the mix if you want to hear the true benefit of a high-resolution recording.