No, I noticed the distortion from my tweeters for a while now. If it's related to the 970 or not, who knows. They were purchased at the same time so I guess I'll have to do some testing but from what you just wrote, it appears that other things could cause distortion and it's quite possible the 970 isn't doing it. Or did any damage, but with the occasional popping/buzzing I do worry.

The distortion usually happens when someone is screaming in a movie. It's quite embarrassing actually, but since it doesn't happen all the time, I don't know what is exactly the cause. Ruined tweeters, bad soundtrack.

The popping sound, on power up, is quite loud but is always the same level and doesn't change if my volume control is at a different point.

Thanks for the info.

Not sure how efficient your M&Ks are, but if they're power hungry and the distortion is only coming from peak volume swings like the screaming you described, it could be distortion that resulted from driving the 7100 into clipping.

Once the waveform "clips" it generates high frequency harmonics that we hear as a brightness or harshness that is abrasive or downright painful to listen to. These harmonics also deliver a lot of power to the drivers which can cause them to blow. Like happend to me!

As to the pop, not sure what that could be. Are you powering up your amp before or after the 970?

I doubt it's clipping since it happens on moderate volumes as well.

If I power up the 970 first, there is no popping. But this is my second 970 (returned first), and never had popping when my amp was on before the 970, with my first 970.

There seems to be an incosistancy with the quality of the units Outlaw is selling. I've noticed different issues between my two 970's.

Iardon,

This could be off in left field, but let me play this out. You said earlier that the "clipping" you're hearing is only happens when somebody is screaming in a movie. Are there any particular scenes in a particular movie that this happens in? If so, does the "clipping" happen everytime this scene is replayed?

I say this for this reason. One is that if you know where to look, maybe somebody else can watch the same movie on their set up and see if they have any "clipping" at the same point. It's truly possible that you're actually hearing distortion from either the microphones used in the scene or it's on the medium the soundtrack was recorded on. Your M&K speakers are known as very revealing and detailed speakers. It's possible you're hearing a mistake in the recording rather than a fault in the equipment.

If you had said that you heard "clipping" during explosions and loud scenes then it might point to the amplifier. But saying it happens when there is screaming makes me question the source.

Just thinking out loud...

Amplifiers should always only be engaged after the preamp is stabilized. Twenty year ago I blew a set of speakers powering both at the same time.

My current caver amp mutes for about 10 sec after power on and my monster power center holds back amp power for another 10 sec after the 970 signals it to turn on the amp. I never get any start up pops!

Watch out for clipping it destroys speakers.

But when is the firmware comming out of Beta it is better but still clunky

I recommend the movie "Scream."

Just kidding, Jason J has a good point and it would be interesting to try different demos and see if one or two movies are the culprits.

I recall in my retail days, a customer thought they had either a bad speaker or a bad CD. So they brought the CD to the store and we played it on our reference system (the CD was "Nojima Plays Liszt"). Turns out the equipment was not defective, but instead, so revealing of the source material, you could hear where the mic picked up the impact sounds of Nojima's finger nails striking the keys.

Lastly, regarding the pop, it's not unusual to hear a power-on noise if the preamp is turned on or off when the amp is on. Case in point, my amps and electronics are plugged into two Adcom ACE-515 AC enhancers that delay powering-up the amp sockets after the "accessories" sockets to prevent turn on thump. They cycle off in reverse order.

Next time I think about it, I'll try powering the 970 on and off with the amps on to see if I can duplicate the noise you're getting.

I am just catching up here after spending the day in meetings, but as I read through it I had the same thoughts as Jason - specifically because I've heard instances of clipping, static, distortion, and other audio artifacts before that were inherent to the recording and appeared at any volume. Having a better than average sound system actually makes these artifacts worse because they become more noticeable as the signal path becomes more transparent. I've rarely encountered it on DVD's, but I've noticed it any number of times on TV.

I haven't had the problem since the first ocurence. It was strange since it was an extremely loud bzzzz sound that kept going until I powered off the 1070. I use separate amps for the front and center speakers and have everything powered up automatically with a Harmony 880 remote. I wonder if it somehow had to do with how the amps came up when everything was powered up.