Stephen B: I know of the supposed management issues with the Oppos, particularly when it comes to bass management, but have not experienced them myself. I guess I don't have the right source material to saturate the low frequency downmix. But, I too, would prefer to use it as an audio format decoder and disk spinner.

In my experience the bass management, level setting, and delay worked fine in the Oppo, but the 990 would "forget" settings. The only thing I use the 990 for these days is phantom centre (which it does extremely well for my Bohlender-Graebner Radia 520 fronts), and volume control.

But, I agree, that it's likely better to do sound processing OUTSIDE the Oppo, and that is my long-term plan.

I DON'T think the 205 would serve me better than a 203: the DACs in the 976 (or something like a nanoAVR HDA running DL firmware (AKM) or Essense Evolve II (ESS Sabre Pro)) would be fine for movies. For two channel listening, there are many outboard S/PDIF options and the money saved on a 203 vs 205 would probably be better spent there (unless one is satisfied with the 2ch DAC in the 205 which might very well be the case but not something I would do right away).