manderson,

My Oppo speaker down mix is set to 5.1, which I believe is correct.

Oppo's response to the issue: "When set to DSD the player will not do any bass management as it is not processing the signal, so the player can't generate a subwoofer signal. When using PCM the player is decoding and processing the signal, thereby, allowing the player to generate a subwoofer signal."

Maybe your Oppo, being a later model, handles DSD differently.

I guess I'm resigned to using the analog outs from the Oppo with the SACD format set to PCM. And switching the Outlaw audio input for the Oppo to HDMI for video and 7.1 for SACD.

It's odd that the 976 does not assign channels correctly for PCM over HDMI when there is no LFE channel (when Oppo shows 5.0 on TV screen and not 5.1). Oppo says some Anthem pre-pros have this issue and apparently the Outlaw 976 does, too.

I did discover something about the 976 and the handling of the analog inputs that is not spelled out in the user manual. The level controls in the Oppo should all be set to the same level, because the 976 speaker levels are used. However, the Oppo crossover and distances should be set to the same values as those in the 976, because the 976 settings for those don't apply to the 7.1 inputs - according to Ben in Outlaw CS.