>>Please don't get your hopes up, this is why they have the IA40.

I don't believe it is technically possible to offer an analog bypass on the 861. The back plane is digital. The analog input card converts the incoming signal to digital and then sends it down the bus. The analog output cards grabs the digital signal off the bus and then converts it back to analog.<<

We'll see come September at CEDIA. If not, there are other ways to get the analog signal from a Multichannel SACD player to the amp besides the 861.