My post was:And I say that even mid-fi gear decoding a lossless surround source will sound better than higher-end equipment decoding lossy surround. A Blu-ray player's output through SP/DIF is downconverted to DD or DTS, both lossy compression schemes. I seriously doubt that the decoding capability's of Onkyo's mid-line AVR from two years ago is significantly better than the internal decoders of today's Blu-ray players. Ergo, lossless surround processed internally and passed via the analog connections to the Rotel's analog surround will outperform the Rotel decoding an inferior digital surround source.
Great Hi-rez sound from the analog outputs from a $200-300 BR player seems doubtful at best to me compared to what your Rotel should be capable of.
At the time Wes wrote that, he had no doubt heard most of the cost-no-object, SOTA surround processors for DVD-based DTS and Dolby Digital. Yet this Toshiba HD DVD player feeding an Onkyo receiver blew him away, expectations to the contrary.