Bryston SP2 vs Meridian 861

This is probably a silly question, considering that Meridian is known for digital technology, and the price difference between the 861 and SP2 has to speak for something. But I just have to ask. Has anybody compared the SP2 and 861 when a digital source (preferably a CD player) is plugged into their respective digital input. I am still talking about 2-channel music listening. However we are now using a digital source and the direct comparison between the 2 pieces of equipment.

Apparently Stereophile praises the digital side of SP2 so much that I am wondering if the 861 is really worth the money. The remainder of my system is the Ayre V5xe driving the Infinity Prelude MTS on the stereo side. So from the absolute sense, does 861 really outperform SP2 on 2-channel digital? And from the relative sense, in order to hear the difference between 861 and SP2 digitally, does it take much better equipment than what I have?

The reason for my asking is that I would prefer having 1 preamp that does both music and movies. Yet I am an audiophile at heart, wanting to extract that extra drop of sound out of a musical piece. I can have separate components for music and for movies if I reluctantly must.

So does this mean the 861 is a mediocre music preamp? Or perhaps the SP2 is not close to the best music preamp out there either.

At the other extreme, is the SP2 a rather lousy surround sound processor that you should not consider it for watching movies.

I can go either analog or digital. It's the ultimate sound realism of a musical piece, and the stereo separation/clarity for a surround sound that I am after. Thank you.

My current CD/DVD player is the Meridian 596 which can be plugged into the 861 nicely to produce some kind of a musical performance and the expected excellent surround sound quality. Or its 192-khz analog output can be plugged into an analog preamp such as the SP2, while its digital output would go into the digital surround sound of the SP2. However I am think of the long term, which is CD-quality music stored on a hard drive. So eventually I would have to buy a DAC capable of wirelessly receiving the musical signal. I am not going to buy any wireless equipment nor any DAC until the technology can achieve "that" level of audiophile performance. But you know the technology is only a few years away. In short, any analog preamp is still needed, unless I don't think straight here.

My speakers are not digital. So are you saying that the DAC inside the 861 would produce analog signal for the amplifier at the 2-channel music performance level better than the straight analog route through the SP2? Basically you can skip a high-quality external DAC/SP2 combo because the 861 DAC would be better sound-wise anyway?