And may not care about room EQ. Are there any compelling reasons he should not jump on a $700 990 instead of waiting for the 997?

I'm reading all about stats, but I'm curious to hear from some experienced folks who own the unit.

Thanks in advance!

-Joe

Well, currently nobody owns a 997, of course, so it's going to be at least somewhat supposition. Having said that, I think a pretty strong case can still be made for the Model 990. You will be giving up room correction and internal video processing, and you will need to look for a Blu-ray player with multichannel analog output when you decide to get into Blu-ray. Otherwise, the 990 remains a very good performer even today.

This may also be useful: I've spent a fair bit of a time with an Onkyo PR-SC885 since the latter part of last year, and prior to that I used a Model 990 for over three years. Granted, my room's acoustics are pretty reasonable and I had an SMS-1 to help with subwoofer EQ, so I'm not the best person to evaluate the full potential of Audyssey to fix problem rooms, but I wasn't especially amazed by Audyssey. Additionally, the one source that needs video processing the most in my system is my cable box, but a combination of the box's own stubbornness to provide an unprocessed signal and the slow video signal acquisition time of the 885's Reon have left me continuing to use the cable box's dreadful deinterlacing and scaling. Oh, and my wife has said numerous times that she preferred the 990 - sonically, she heard no benefit to the 885, and functionally the 885 gets on her nerves in ways that the 990 did not (slower audio signal acquisition, for example). Fortunately we already had a good universal remote, because the 885's remote would have driven her up the wall.

Thanks for the input, gonk. I am leaning heavily towards a 990.

Regarding the Blu-Ray player - they don't have digital audio outputs? Or is it just in a format the 990 wouldn't understand? I don't know much about Blu-Ray.

-Joe

As I stated in another thread my 990 meets all my needs. I hook video directly to the source and the analog connections provide great sound. I have no need for room correction so I will stick with my 990.

If you don't need/care about the room EQ or HDMI then you almost have to jump on the 990 for 700 bucks.

They all have optical and/or coaxial output, which works fine for CD's and DVD's. But Blu-ray offers several new audio formats (Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD High Resolution, and DTS-HD Master Audio) as well as the option of having raw multichannel PCM on the disc. None of these can pass via optical or coaxial, as the only digital output that can support them (either as bitstreamed signals or multichannel PCM decoded by the player) is HDMI. DD+, TrueHD, and both DTS-HD formats all carry "core" DD and DTS tracks that can be passed via optical or coaxial, but it's a lesser quality - especially for TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, which are lossless formats. To get the full benefit of those formats with a non-HDMI v1.1+ receiver or processor, you need multichannel analog (similar to DVD-Audio and SACD). That's one of the reasons that the BDP-83 is getting so much attention, as it combines Blu-ray, DVD-Audio, and SACD in a single chassis with a really good 7.1 analog section.

Thanks for the clarification, gonk. Does this imply that HDMI will become more important to me in the future when I buy my Blu-Ray player, or will most good BR players support analog out?

I guess what I'm asking is, is it better to let the Outlaw have the unmolested digital signal or to let the BR player decode the signal to analog?

Or is it six of one half-dozen of the other?

Thanks again,

-Joe

At present, the only mainstream format which uses HDMI's audio pathways to do things that can't be done equally well with coaxial or optical is Blu-ray. DVD-Audio and SACD can also use HDMI's digital audio connection, but (as much as I enjoy them) they are niche formats. HD-DVD can, as well, since it supported the same audio formats as Blu-ray, but hardware support for it has been nonexistent for over a year now (Toshiba completely pulled the plug last year). For other sources that offer HDMI for audio and video, you can use optical or coaxial and lose nothing. So from an audio standpoint, I recommend that you have access to either multichannel analog or HDMI for audio when getting into Blu-ray. For other sources, you can use HDMI if your processor supports it or you can use coaxial/optical - either way, you get the same thing (PCM stereo, Dolby Digital, or DTS).

Is it better to pass a digital signal? It can have some advantages - that's typically the only way to use room correction software such as Audyssey or Trinnov, and it lets the surround processor do the bass management. The analog option isn't necessarily bad, though. For example, the 990 will still provide full bass management of the 7.1 Direct input, and using a player with a well-designed analog section can potentially rival a digital signal path. It comes down to cost. If you already have a good non-HDMI processor and don't want to upgrade it, analog makes all the sense in the world. And if you look at the 990/BDP-83 combo (as an example that offers a good analog path all the way through), you can get both the surround processor and the player for $1200 - which is less than the 997 alone will cost. There are several folks I know who already own 990's and are interested in Blu-ray, and because they don't need the added features (or don't want the added complexity that those features will likely require) I've suggested this approach to them.

For video, I recommend HDMI. It certainly has its faults (HDCP being a major part of the problem), but it also offers the best way to get HD video signals to modern displays. The 990's DVI switching will work fine with HDMI sources and HDMI displays, so if you have a couple of such sources you can still use the 990 to provide some automatic switching.

Well, cost is really the least of my concerns at the moment - at least in the price range of the 990/997. I'm more concerned with longevity - will I want to upgrade the 990 in a year? Is it worth it to deal with my broken 950 2-3 more months to grab a 997 at the intro pricing? I know I can buy a 990 now and get $200 off the 997, but it's not really worth it to me to have to tear my system apart twice.

I'm still not convinced either way. I do love the convenience and lack of cable bird's nests HDMI affords, at the very least. It also appears the 997 will support future digital audio formats, giving me a wider range of media players I can choose from.

OTOH I can have the 990 now and it may be all the processor I'll need for the next 5 years, as long as I choose media players with analog output.

-Joe

History suggests that there won't be "intro" pricing on the 997 - it will launch at $1399 and likely stay there for at least a year or so. You could think about buying a 990 now, getting the $200 discount on the 997, and then trying to sell the 990 for $500 to break even.

Having HDMI will give you a bit more future-proofing, certainly, but I still think that the 990 can be a pretty sweet foundation for a home theater system - and you can get it now, with the only wait being the time it will take to get from Outlaw's warehouse to your door.

I'm currently running a 990 and am totally pleased with it's performance. The 997 will probably be great, but the controling word there is prabably. It doesn't use the same DACs as the 990 and will , therefore, sound diferent. Worse ? Better ? As good ? who knows ?
The 990 is something of a classic , I couldn't ask for a better processor at the price. Or for that matter, at twice the price. If your concerned about processinmg new formats , that can be done in the disc player. Can the 997 do a better job ? Who knows.
I've been tempted by the 997's equalization as I have a very strangely shaped room for my HT set-up , but the 990 sounds so good that I'm confident that any potential improvement would be marginal.
I guess my point is that the 990 is one of the all time great pre/pros. Outlaw is making the 997 so I'm sure it will be of very high quality, but I really doubt that it's going to be a huge improvement over the 990. How much can you do for $1400 ?