PCM or Bitstream

That player of yours must have two sets of DAC's inside it (on two chipsets, or both on one? I don't know). If the sound is not different enough to detect to your ears in your system, then I wouldn't worry about the choice. Another way to look at the situation would be to assume that quite possibly other, presumably shared aspects of the player, such as the transport mechanism, power supply, analog output stage, and output filter, may determine its characteristic sound to a larger degree than the method of conversion chosen.

Pcm uses your players Dac..Bitstream uses your processor's Dac. Most (not all) pre/pro's have the better Dac so you should hear some kind of difference. Do you have a good digital cable? Maybe both Dac's are very close in quality.

Dave

I suspect that the reason it seems to make no difference is that there is none in your setup.

If you are using the digital output to the preamp/receiver, this option is to choose whether it is going to output DD and DTS along with PCM. You will either get an output or not and it will make no difference for PCM.

If you are using the analog outputs to the preamp/reciever, the setting is irrelevant.