But you're ignoring an important point. If the H701 is used with the 9855, you're not using the deck just as a transport... You're outputting an imperfect signal into the 701 using the analog outputs from the deck. The 701 then takes the signal and converts it back to digital, including all of the imperfections from the orginal analog signal as well as other problems introduced during the A/D conversion, where the processing is done. Then the signal is again converted back into analog by the less than stellar outputs in the 701 to finally be fed to your amplifiers.
This is in no way an optimal situation. You're using the standard 1 bit dac's of the 9855 to input a signal into the 701. You're never going to get a better signal than what you have at the beginning of the line and in this case you're starting with the analog Alpine deck. And on top if it all the 701's outputs aren't really anything the speak of either, at least when compared to what's put into the 9255. Ultimately the 701 teamed with the 9855 is as you say it very flexible, but definately not near the quality of the 9255 where all the processing is done without leaving the digital domain nor is it up to speed with the plain Jane signal from the P9.
