Ninogui,
first off, welcome to the forum!
Just for you to know, I still have a DV-696 player and it's a great one indeed, but it's now in my bedroom system though.
IIRC, this player hasn't been widely available in the US (got mine in Chicago, a while back, with dual-voltage and region-free,though).
Really don't recall it by now, but if you can't get SACD audio thru HDMI, is due to the HDMI version though (if memory serves me well, you gotta have v1.2a and maybe the 696 doesn't have it). Anyway a great player indeed
