I love the DACs in my Blu-Ray player

I tell you what.  I've got an older Harman/Kardon AVR which I always thought had a nice sounding amplifier section.  I knew it wasn't top of the line, but I would call it above average.  I got a Pioneer Blu-Ray (the highest non-Elite model).  In reading the specs, they seemed to be touting how great the Wolfson DACs were.  Well, my H/K doesn't have HDMI inputs anyway, so I decided to connect it all analog to the 8 Channel input.

At first I didn't know if it was the high-res audio formats on Blu-Ray discs that was making the difference, but my little* BIC Venturi front speakers sounded bigger and put out a much more wide-open sound than I had ever heard out of them.  It was the type of difference that I only thought an amplifier upgrade would provide.  Unreal. After watching a few standard DVDs, I realized it was the player itself creating this great audio.

I can't imagine that the H/K's DACs are "bad," but it opened my eyes to how much of a difference the processing makes. 

* by "little," I'm talking about price.  I've got 2 big ol' 6.5" bookshelves that get down to about 50 Hz and a center with dual 6.5"s that supposedly gets down to 38 Hz.