Matt, there's a reason to use the digital output on your player even for CDs. If you use any type of processing on them in your 884(e.g. bass management for your sub or surround processing such as DPLII)rather than feeding the signals straight through, the processing has to be done digitally. So, the analog input would first have to be reconverted to digital by the ADC in the receiver, processed, and then again converted to analog by the receiver DACs for amplification. It's questionable how much these extra conversions mean, but they can't help and there's no good reason for the complication. Incidentally, a "digital" cable(usually meaning one with 75ohm impedance)doesn't have to necessarily be used on the digital output if you don't have one handy. The 75ohm impedance would only become significant at the wavelengths used in CDs if the cable was longer than about 40 feet. For the more common connection distances of a few feet an "analog"(i.e. not 75ohm)"RCA" cable works just as well.
