Tim,
The living room system is 2.1, because the arrangement doesn't make surround speakers practical. I connected the Oppo 95 stereo to the LR mains of the 5.1 pass-through of the PDSD, and the sound was splendid. That setup has only the Oppo as a source. But if I migrated the same idea to the media room where there are 3 sources, two disc players and a phono stage, I'd run into the limitation I wrote about in my previous post.
I'll try connecting the Oppo to the analog XLR input of PAV and connecting the output of the PAV to the PDSD, but what I may have liked so much in the previous setup was the direct pass through of the Oppo to the amp. I can go through the PAV or directly to the PDSD pass-through in the living room setup.
db