Sniffer, I agree that SACD sounds great--but what kind of transport are you using to develop the analog signal output? In my case, with a Denon 3910 I don't hear meaningful any difference between the Denon DACs sending analog from a CD or the DACs in the 990. I think you're absolutely right if HD and Blu-Ray manufacturers see their device as a video AND audio device and build them with quality DAC and op amps like my example above. I fear, however, that they will shortchange the audio seeing themselves as an HD video device. Does it make a difference? Probably not in reality. The included formats are likely to be as good as or better than what's on DVDs now and some of those sound awesome. Fact is, we tend to ignore the importance of quality source material. GIGO. A well-recorded soundtrack will doubtless sound great.

Looks like HD sound will have to wait. I bought the 990 over a Anthem D1 in part because of the 7.1 analog inputs. Looks like I get to use only 6 of them which is what the Anthem had. I'm $4000 better off this way and not at all unhappy with the 990. Until the format war all shakes out I am not buying an HD player anyway. It would be fun to watch both formats die an ugly death and a new single format has to be created. But that's not going to happen either--nobody really cares--or not enough of us, so we will go merrily on with format wars, incomplete implementations, incompatibilties, and output flags. You know, the wisdom of the RR2150 becomes clearer and clearer. Things were so simple with two channels.