Well I won't be getting one after all, at least not right now. I'm going 4K and getting an OLED instead. I bought the Sony UBP-800 BD player which has HDMI audio only so you don't have to have a receiver/processor that passes 4K. Its a great BD player by the way. Maybe down the line next year around June....if its out by then. I gotta say I don't get it. Where is this thing anyway? I can't believe pre orders haven't started yet.

This is mostly for you Rene but having giving your comments some thought I have a few comments and thoughts. The biggest would be to not use any of the management features in the OPPO. I have the 103 and can say from experience it does a lousy job regarding levels and distance and forget downmixing as it will not get the job done. I tried using mine as the hub in a 2.0 then a 2.1 system to bad effect. Life improved greatly when I bought my 975 and let it handle all of the audio. The 103 is a great disk spinner/media hub but leaves much to be desired regarding audio processing. There is a reason the '05 series machines from OPPO run a $1,000 more over the '03's. The 105 OPPO can be used as a good stand alone pre/pro where the 103 is dissapointing at best when used in the same capacity.

I give you an A+ for creativity but think you will have much greater success if you were to simplify your thought process a bit.

I just checked and the 976 is not in the Logitech Harmony list of supported products. I wonder when the 976 will be added.

It won't be there until the 976 is released.

just looking for a little hint the 976 is close to being released. And also prepping a list of items to go with it. Gonna be a big update!

Hint: Black Friday is getting close. Should be some sort of announcement then.

We can hope for a Black Friday or Cyber Monday availability but I am not holding my breath.

Yeah, this sucks. Chad B will be here 11/30 to cal my new display and do an audio cal...

I don't want to buy any other components until the 976 is available as it is the heart of the overhaul I'm planning for my family room HT. But if it is available next week I might save some money on other components if they are part of any Black Friday sales. The only item left to decide is whether to get a 55" or 65" TV and I'm making a mockup to figure out how big a 65" will feel in our family room.

That reminds me...I will get an ISF calibration of the new TV.

Stephen B: I know of the supposed management issues with the Oppos, particularly when it comes to bass management, but have not experienced them myself. I guess I don't have the right source material to saturate the low frequency downmix. But, I too, would prefer to use it as an audio format decoder and disk spinner.

In my experience the bass management, level setting, and delay worked fine in the Oppo, but the 990 would "forget" settings. The only thing I use the 990 for these days is phantom centre (which it does extremely well for my Bohlender-Graebner Radia 520 fronts), and volume control.

But, I agree, that it's likely better to do sound processing OUTSIDE the Oppo, and that is my long-term plan.

I DON'T think the 205 would serve me better than a 203: the DACs in the 976 (or something like a nanoAVR HDA running DL firmware (AKM) or Essense Evolve II (ESS Sabre Pro)) would be fine for movies. For two channel listening, there are many outboard S/PDIF options and the money saved on a 203 vs 205 would probably be better spent there (unless one is satisfied with the 2ch DAC in the 205 which might very well be the case but not something I would do right away).