<font color='#000000'>REO,
I prefer the sound of the Denon's DACs.
In my attempts to critically listen to the analog output from the Denon's current version of Burr Browns through 0.5m Audioquest G-Snake interconnects versus the Rotel's DACs (which I was informed by my dealer are 2 year old versions of Asahi Kasai AKM4324 24 bit 96 khz DACs) using a 1m Monster 4 Toslink cable, I was able to pick the Denon's performance as the better sounding one using primitive blind testing. I was using familiar recordings (principally Nora Jones, Everything But The Girl, and assorted classical material including double bass solos by Edgar Meyer) as reference material. The differences here are pretty subtle and I'm not sure how much more I would pay for the Denon's sound over the Rotel's, but there was a slight improvement. I suppose I can say that I am at least willing to pay the price for another pair of analog interconnects in order to connect the Denon in both 5.1 analog as well as 2-channel stereo (and Toslink for HT for now). The additional bonus of the 2-channel analog signal from the Denon is that, when connected this way, the Rotel commits a significant additional 20 watts per channel. This was all worth having to explain to my girlfriend that there are three completely separate connections from the Denon to the Rotel for CD, DVD and SACD. She's catching on to using the intimidating remote and reluctantly admits that the results are almost worth the headache.
I may try to update my response in this forum once I have upgraded my surround speakers from borrowed Eosones to B&W CDM-SNTs and finally added that subwoofer (come on Velodyne DD!). Then it's time to focus on the Denon's video playback...</font>