Hi again,
Thought I'd give it another go, as you're right the manual clearly states it should work... and it does...
I must have had something other than stereo selected for the surround mode...
The 'effects' only work in stereo mode and aren't selectable if any of the surround modes are engaged. Spot who doesn't use any of these modes!!
With regard to 96KHz output, in my experience it's a bit of a lottery. Generally pretty much all DVD players will not output a 96KHz PCM signal over the digital out. How they handle this is down to individual players. For example my previous Sony DVP-NS905V would automatically downsample any copy protected 96KHz PCM signal to 48KHz. This meant you always got a signal. I've since replaced that with a Denon DVD-2900 and it handles 96KHz signals differently. By default it doesn't down convert, however it too will not output a copy protected 96KHz signal over PCM. So, by default with the Denon I get nothing on the digital output if I select the 96KHz track. If I tell it to downsample, I get sound, but in 48KHz not 96KHz.
One unfortunate feature of the AVP700 (and I believe other ARCAMs) is that they don't show you the PCM input stream sample rate, so it's not easy to work out what you're actually listening to! (So, ARCAM if you're reading this, a software update that shows what the PCM sample rate is would be very useful!)
So, I'm interested to hear that Jack got a 96KHz signal from A Night at the Opera as I tried the exact same disc and couldn't get a 96KHz output, only downsampled 48KHz. The only way I can listen to the 96KHz track is over the analogue outs on the DVD player into the AVP700, which sounds pretty good, but not as good as the full on surround mix in 96KHz IMO!
Hope this helps...
Ian.