The 971H's multichannel analog output was something of an afterthought - even OPPO admitted taht pretty readily - so it may not be the best test of the processor's abilities since the 971H is contributing heavily to the overall sound.

If you are looking for DVD-A/SACD support with the 9.8 or Onkyo Pro 885, you might want to look at something like the 980H. At that point, you could even compare multichannel analog to HDMI digital (being sure to set the 980H's output resolution to at least 720p because of some bandwidth allocation foibles inherent in the HDMI spec). The 980H's analog output is a good bit better than the 971H's.