Hey Gonk, sorry to leave you hanging. The problem is definately with the HK digital output. I should have known better to doubt the Outlaw. As a result I am only using analog out from the CD player. Any thoughts/reasons you can think of why this would happen? Any EE's out there? The question is why would a stove burner pilot light consistently cause the digital output signal to cut-out coming from my CD player. I'm stumped! Lets just blame it on HK's poor qc of their CD players!