Greetings all you Outlaws:

For those of you who are not familar with me, I must tell you I am a dedicated audiophile and HT enthusiact.

I checked out the specs for the 997 and I am not pleased to see only 2 coaxial and 5 toslink. This type of design in my opinion is too much oriental and not for the American market.

Why do people use Outlaw products? The HT people will really have a great time using these Outlaw products. For example, at this time, I use three coaxial digital inputs. One is for the HDTV, the second is for movies coming off my DVD player.

The third connection which in the past dit not matter too much for me buy now is very important.

I use a tube based system to listen to music. I have a great tube DAC kit that will go into the system, hopefully late next month. This DAC has a dedicated USB input designed by Jim Hagerman. I will use my laptop to connect to the DAC as be in audio bliss.

For over a year, I have used my desktop to connect the the 1070 so I can listen to music and build my own playlists. I only listen to Lossless mucis, no crappy lossy tunes are allowed in my system.

It was not to a short time agop that I figured out how to get my PC going into the 1070 to sound the best it could. I have am M-Audio Revolution 7.1 PCI card with a coakil digital out connection. I run a 35 foot cable into a reclocker then out the 1970. The sound is OK, I can listen yet I do have the audiophile disease.

I changed the front end player on my PC and used Direct sound. This helped the SQ and I found myself listening to more music. The Audio bug bit me more and after talks with two buddys I decided to use ASIO. For those uising a PC with Windblows and anything before Vista, I highly suggest you use ASIO.

Now I am so pleased to report the SQ is better than I ever thought I could get with HT!

Until my Dac is ready, I am getting used to useing my desktop now and not is the best way yet I am so pleased with the sound and ease of use. I am not listening to my tube system until the DAC goes in!

This 1070 simply put is the one , HT receiver out there good enough to please someone like me. The decision buy Outlaw not to forget about Music makes me glad that I use the 1070.

Of course the 1070 has 4 digital coaxial inputs so I fear i may have to stay using the 1070 and not go for the 997 due to the lack of the extra inputs I desire.

Change can be good but sometimes chamge is not so good.

My plea goes out to the peopek who design the unbit and i beg you to work around the oriental desire to use all the opttical inputs and use COXAIL inputs, add at least two more like on the 1070.

There are inexpensive devices which change toslink to coaxial and vice versa. Since the information is digital, there is no loss in the translation between formats.

It looks like your cable box also has an optical audio output and I can't remember ever seeing a dvd player that didn't have both coax and optical audio outputs...

When I get my new 997 I will only use 1 digital audio input as the rest will all use HDMI. In another thread someone was complaining that the 997 didn't have enough HDMI inputs. I don't believe the Outlaws intended to satisfy every possible need for everyone. It is an audio/video processor so it is designed to be used as such. What I, and many others, like about their products is that they provide cost effective products.

I typically do not feel comfortable with interfaces. The path of least resistance is what I prefer. As an Audiophile, don't you agree Altec?

Do you have any solid engineering evidence, or controlled double blind listening test results which would point to degredation of a digital signal when translated between Toslink and coaxial?

If you "don't feel comfortable" with these devices, well, I guess as far as inputs go, you're out of luck.

???

It looks like your cable box also has an optical audio output and I can't remember ever seeing a dvd player that didn't have both coax and optical audio outputs...

The optical use the toslink connector. I use very high end Coaxial. Optical is for laymen , not for people like me who take sound to heart!