There is so much happening in AV receivers nowadays...Ethernet, Appple TV, Alexa, Bluetooth, DSP, ADC, DAC, Dolby Vision passthrough, eARC, HEOX, IMAX mode, 13 and 15 channels of manipulation (bass massaging) and amplification, Tidal, Roon, MQA, HDCD, DSD, ... it's not like yesterday's stereo AM/FM receivers with a Tone Bypass button. An AV receiver today is like the space shuffle, like a Tesla electric car, like Microsoft control center, like Amazon worldwide infrastructure, like Donald Trump organization, ...
Pure Direct audio mode doesn't do anything magic to my ears that Direct and Stereo cannot either. It sounds all the same to my set of ears. Trying to listen for differences/variations give me a bad headache after hours of extensive attentive listening, after days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, milleniums, different galaxies, other multiverses, 3 and 4D rainbows, ...
It might sligthly measure better on paper graphs but not in my real life listening music and film soundtracks experience. IMHO, YMMV, ALLTHATPLUTOJAZZ.