My note regarding the digital conversion relates to the Yamaha - and the way that any surround receiver or processor deals with analog stereo inputs. Because many of the features that we associate with a surround receiver (surround processing modes, bass management, individual speaker levels and delays, etc) are handled by the DSP with digital audio signals, those analog inputs need to be converted to digital. On the other hand, the multichannel analog input on a receiver (be it 5.1 or 7.1) is there largely because of the existence of lossless audio formats - and we don't want those audio streams getting overly jostled from D to A to D to A. As a result, using the receiver's 7.1 analog input skips all of that - the signal goes to the volume control and then to the internal amps (or the pre-amp outputs). It isn't necessarily completely neutral, as it will depend on how well designed and clean the analog signal path is within the receiver, but you are at least remaining in the analog domain throughout.