I'm buried at work right now, but I'll try to pop back in here later and offer what insight I can muster on this subject. For the moment, suffice to say that the 885, 886, and 950 do not have any A/D/A conversion for the multichannel analog inputs. That's why Audyssey is impossible with the 885 and 886 using the multichannel analog, and why digital bass management is impossible with all of them. Stereo analog inputs are a whole different matter, but I don't think we're talking about that here.
Thank You Gonk, any additional comments will be appreciated as well.
You have cleared up one of my questions about how the analog inputs are handled by the 886. Therefore, as I stated at the beginning of this thread, any processing of the signal will have to be done by the BDP-83. However, a closer look at the BDP-83 shows that it really has limited capabilities in this regard, i.e. 80Hz fixed crossover for small speakers, speaker distances must be set the same for left/right pairs, etc. I suppose something like an ICBM-1 could be used to improve the bass management. But, this still is no where near the capabilities of the 886 with or without Audyssey.
In the end the question (obviously a theoretical question) comes back to will this yield better SQ than using the HDMI outputs and letting the 886 do all the processing and DAC? How about the BDP-83SE are its DACs enough of an upgrade to make it worth while to use the multi-channel analog?
My personal experience so far has been limited to the HDMI connection. I have just gotten it fully configured using the Audyssey and the SMS-1. When I tried the analog inputs it was very clear that they are in need of additional setup, i.e. distance, sound level, and bass management. Before I go through all that trouble I was wondering if at least in theory it was going to be worth my while. Or should I just go ahead and jump and get the BDP-83SE? My goal is to get the best SQ I can for my SACD and stereo CD listening.
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