I vehemently agree! btw, will the 997 ONLY have balanced outputs?

Nope - it will have the standard RCA's as well.

Thanks Gonk. I had assumed (or read) it had both, but all of a sudden I....lost my mind.

That's OK - it didn't get far before we caught it...

As one of the early contributors to this discussion about that the 997 should have that it doesn't / has that it shouldn't, I will ask one question about phono inputs: Can well-reproduced CDs surpass, or even completely equal, well-reproduced LPs? I'm referring only to audio quality and realize cost is a decisive factor as always, so let's put in a cost ceiling of $1000 for turntable, arm, cartridge, and preamp on the LP side vs. player and DAC on the CD side. The fact that the platform the 997 is based on has abandoned phono reproduction implies to me that musical quality is no longer very high in manufacturers' priority lists, and that deeply saddens me.

Typo correction: "this discussion about WHAT the 997 should have", not "THAT it should have".
Re the rest, I guess I should face the fact that HT, in the last analysis, isn't about music. Too bad, all around.

Typo correction: "this discussion about WHAT the 997 should have", not "THAT it should have".
Re the rest, I guess I should face the fact that HT, in the last analysis, isn't about music. Too bad, all around.

I think that's a question that can't be definitively answered. It can be answered, but any answer will be debated without resolution.

I still see more than one way to interpret the omission of a phono section. One is that they don't care about high performance two-channel audio quality. Another is that they recognize that the quality of phono section that could be included in a product of this type would not offer the sort of performance that a discerning ear and good vinyl setup would deserve, so they omitted it entirely rather than furnish something that was inherently limited.

I can think of two situations where balanced outputs would be a good idea: 1) when the amp and pre/pro are located in a noisy electrical environment and 2) when running self-powered speakers where the signal cable could encounter some electrical interference. As I understand it the balanced configuration defeats degradation of the signal in those cases. I imagine most folks don't have either of these situations and standard RCA/coax work just fine. However, I like the balanced outputs/cables just in case #1 above occurs and the XLR connectors on balanced cables are more robust.

AvFan:

(My intention here isn't to get into a conflict, but just to play devil's advocate. )

You raise two good points. However, those situations tend to be unusual and can be addressed in other ways. If pre/pro vendors think that phono preamp usage is rare enough that they can acceptably omit a phono input on their hardware (and, even though I'm a vinyl guy, I think this is a reasonable omission), then the two situations you describe should also fall into the "so rarely encountered we can ignore them" category.

Nonetheless, for purely marketing reasons (which the CE industry/fanbase has tacitly forced vendors into) we all have to pay extra for those seldom needed connectors.