I haven't heard the 970, so I can't offer a sonic comparison between the two. The 970 is a new design (not a feature update), so I suspect it includes some lessons learned from the 950 in addition to advances tied to the new features. The 970's multichannel analog bass management offers a true bypass setting (the 950's always applied a low-pass to copy data below 80Hz from the five full-range channels to the sub channel, even when the switch was set to off) as well as an option to digitize the multichannel input and apply the digital bass management; it includes transcoding (so composite and s-video signals are available at the component video output); it has a third component input; it has a quadruple digital crossover instead of a triple; it has AV sync delay control (adjustable separately for each input); it has a headphone output (with Dolby Headphone processing); it is software upgradeable via the RS-232 port; it offers a 7.1 analog input instead of 5.1; it has Pro Logic IIx (the 950 has Pro Logic II); it has a front input; and it has DVI switching. The 950 has a couple things the 970 doesn't: a second zone output, an extra rear video input, and an extra rear audio input.
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