Interesting description, and in line with what I thought I was hearing on "Happy Feet" in the TrueHD mode as compared with the DD+ track. I didn't do much A/B comparison. When the music track started, I made the audio switch in the movie's set-up screen. As soon as the receiver reset (took several seconds, making real A/B comparison difficult at best) I thought I heard a "crisper" sound, that was more "opened-up". Not a night-and-day difference - subtle but noticeable.
I gave this some more thought over the weekend. My current best guess is that the TrueHD decoder in either the player or receiver could do an equal job of converting the film studio's "original" lossless bitstream to audio. If the audio is taken at the analog connections of the player and provided to analog inputs on the receiver or other amplification means without any interferrence/degradation the reproduction should be the same as if it were decoded in the receiver/pre-pro assuming the quality of the decoders is equal. I'm still reserved as to whether or not the DD+ PCM from the player would result in the same quality however. As others have suggested, TrueHD and/or DTS HD MA would probably have the capability of sounding better with high-end equipment and the right listening environment, assuming the listener has the ability to discern that difference. And I still am led to believe that lossless bitstream can carry more information to the decoder in the receiver/pre-pro assuming it's there in the original studio mix vs. the engineered version that results from the DD or DD+ conversions.
The quest continues...
