hi ive been thinking about the exact same question as the OP which brought me to your site.
would a HDD media player that has digital audio out not do the trick?
im thinking media player>DAC>AMP>SPEAKERS
with the added bonus of being able to plug the tv into the video out of the media player.
would audio quality be affected that much, im thinking not as the media player would just deliver the digital info to the dac?