If the 997 has a USB input, maybe a USB turntable might work?

That condition could easily be caused by a loose or bad cable (or a bad port on the player) when using component video.
Two problems there.

First, if it's like the USB connection on the 990, it needs to connect to a PC so that the receiver can mimic an external sound card - which wouldn't work well with other USB devices. And if it is like the USB connection on some disc players, it would only work with mass storage devices (hard drives, USB sticks, etc.) and not peripherals like a USB turntable. So the odds are that a USB turntable wouldn't work with the USB connection on any surround receiver or processor.

Second, a USB turntable would not be a satisfactory answer for the audience that wants a phono preamp. That audience wants a purely analog signal path from vinyl to speaker, because the source device is analog. A USB turntable has a built-in phono preamp (which solves the problem of no preamp in the processor) followed by an ADC that converts the signal into digital - thus insuring that the folks who wanted a phono preamp in the first place wouldn't touch that turntable with a 10' pole...

Heh...I am actually using my Dad's old SAE 2200 to power my front L/R! It plays very nicely with the 950, although when it is paired with its original mate, an SAE Mark IX-B IIRC, it's like a sonic time warp - I feel like I shouldn't play anything newer than about '75 on that system

WRT to the phono pre discussion...my dad also left me about 3000 vinyl albums when he died. ATM, I don't play them, but I am planning to invest in a decent rig soon. And when I do...

Given the "boutique" nature of vinyl today, and the tidy sums one can easily drop on a nice TT, I think the majority of TT folks are fussy enough to want to pick their own outboard phono pre. Having one in the pre/pro is a convenience for sure, and certainly I would expect Outlaw to make it a nice one (though I've no knowledge of the ones they've put in other products); but all the same, it's not a deal-breaker to me.

Quite the opposite actually; if they included a high-quality one, it might raise the price a couple c-notes, and I wouldn't want that; and if it didn't raise the price much, then I'd worry that it wasn't good enough, and end up replacing it anyway :rolleyes:

- such is the potential dilemma...

Awright enuff awreddy - I yield on the phono preamp question, though I still wish Outlaw would market a standalone version of the 1250's preamp for those of us who still want pure audio quality (and doubters are welcome to try the listening comparison I've already suggested). But my question about 997 biamp capability still hasn't been answered. Is that also too much of a quality question?

If it makes you feel better, we haven't gotten any details beyond what was in the original announcement - so it's not just you...

As for the biamp feature, I wonder how much benefit it will have for the 997 - it's just a pre-amp, so the biamp trick is just internalizing a splitter cable. It would be convenient, so they may leave it rather than remote it, but it doesn't seen as compelling an option on a processor as on a receiver.

I also concur that an Outlaw phono preamp could be a nice little product...

Gonk
I'm not so sure the "bi-amp" reassign would just be splitting the signal. I'm thinking with all the horsepower that's at our disposal (hoping, really) that it would be a actual active xover, with a variable freq separate from the bass management freq.

If they implemented it that way, the user setup for it would have to be very complicated to offer any value - speaker crossover design is not simple. I know that I don't have detailed specs on where my speakers' crossovers are set or at what slopes they work. Even if I did have that information and the software allowed such a detailed level of control over the crossovers, putting two crossovers in series is undesirable - meaning that you'd need to go in and remove the crossover network from your speakers for this feature to work (or at least part of it, if you have a 2 1/2-way or 3-way speaker design). How many of us are actually equipped to use such a feature? Conversely, how many of us are equipped to make a complete mess of things using such a feature? (I'm holding my hand up for the latter question, even though you can't see me...)

I doubt many people will put their 997 in a factory where people will be doing arc welding around it.

True, but how many people use self-powered speakers?

In general, legacy inputs tend to linger forever. These days on PC motherboards we still have serial ports, parallel ports and floppy connectors. In fact when I upgraded my PC a couple of months ago this is the first time that I bought a motherboard which did not have parallel or serial ports - but it STILL has a floppy drive connector.