I agree with eveyone so far, except one thing JohnK mentioned. I disagree with him on playing CD's and/or FM tuner signals. For those options, all I do use is either direct or pure direct modes. The sound to my ears is much better than standard stereo modes. Even the manual states the sound will improve as you progress from CD to Direct to Pure Direct. With these options any internal circuitry not needed is shut down to help give you the most pure output. For me the sound is much improved, but that is just me.
I agree with you Sirclyde about the Denon's, there is so many options it is crazy. For DVD's that have both DD and DTS, I usually try testing both to see what I like best. For the most part, they seem very similar. I believe the DTS signals are decoded at a higher bitrate, but to my ears it is not a huge improvement.
I do agree with John on the PLIIx option. For 7.1 this feature is pretty cool as you get an even more enveloped sound from your rear channels. The problem is figuring out how to get it working.
The other night I just happened to hit the right combination of buttons, and the display said Dolby Digitial plus PLIIx.
The other built in DSP things like Widescreen, Jazz Club, etc... have not proven to me yet to be beneficial.
good luck.
Randy
