Thanks for responding Brent. I look forward to his review in
Sound and Vision as well as more user reviews.

I have been a long time reader of Stereo Review (I mean S&V ) so I look forward to this one.

Thanks for the update. -Bob

What chipset handles the video section?

Any users had a chance to use this with an external EQ like the SMS-1 or antimode 8033?

The CS497024 has a multiband parametric EQ built in! (among other features)

http://www.cirrus.com/en/products/cs4970xx_family.html

Any chance that this could be in a future firmware upgrade?

...that sounds interesting.....

From the original announcement:

"In keeping with the Model 975's combination of value and performance we'll state up front (as previously noted in the Saloon), that an EQ system is not included in this product. We could have easily implemented the EQ program provided with the Cirrus DSP chip, but it simply did not meet our performance standards. While we considered a rewrite of that system, we concluded that the effort would only provide a marginal improvement given the limitation of available filters within the Cirrus architecture."

I have connections to folks that work with DSPs for a variety of audio related functions and from what I understand the ability to utilize all the functionality of these sorts of multi-purpose chips is not just a matter of flipping checkboxes in the firmware. Generally there has to be at least some added "SDRAM" and often a considerable amount of "custom interface integration" done -- while there are some "libraries" of semi-generic functionality supported by the chip makers software development kits, getting these functions to work reliably often takes a whole more development time and/ or exponentially greater hardware costs...

Or sometimes there's some fine print in the data sheet that says:

"1. Additional processing (MPMA, MPMB, VPM, PPM) post any of the HD audio decoders may be limited."

Which could mean:

"What you want to do won't work." I'm not saying this is the case because I'm no expert on the Cirrus chip. But statements like that lead me to believe not all permutations of functions are available.

It would take more than a firmware modifictaion to turn the equalizer on and Outlaw decided not to do it to keep the costs down. It will be interesting to hear how well the parametric equalizer functions in the upcoming Emotiva processor.