No, if the disc has 7.1 audio, that's what the player will output through its HDMI or coax and optical digital outputs.
Yes John. I said analog as in the opposite of digital. The "D" in HDMI stands for digital. It is actually the only format capable of transporting a full 7.1 channel lossless audio soundtrack like DTS Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD but older receiver/preprocessors (like mine) may not have the required input and even if it does may be incapable of decoding it. (In fact this is only output on HDMI if the player is configured to output bitstream and the upstream device supports it.) Coax and optical digital outputs are limited to 5.1 channel 'lossy' formats like Dolby Digital or DTS. Yes DTS-ES does encode a back surround channel within the format if it is available on the source but this is not really a discrete channel.
The point I was trying to make is that if you have an older receiver or preprocessor without HDMI inputs or without support for the latest lossless 7.1 channel audio formats using player without a full set of 7.1 audio outputs will limit your options for getting all those lossless channels out to your speakers. For me this was a compelling reason to get an Oppo. I got the 95 but even the $500 BDP 93/103 has the full set of 7.1 channel analog outputs. Mind you if your receiver/processor doesn't have the 7.1 channel inputs this isn't an issue.
