I received my 976 Friday morning, spent the evening looking over the manual and making a connection diagram. To put this in context, I am upgrading from a 990 so I was looking forward to a far simpler connection scheme. In the end I removed, literally handfuls of cables. Balance of the system consists of Gallo Reference 3.1s main and center, Vandersteen sub and surrounds LG OLED55C7 TV, Oppo 83 Bluray and a bottom of the line LG 4k Bluray.

Unit was packed in two boxes, cradled in that thick spongy foam. Manual, remote, etc was sitting on top so easily accessible. Connections were uneventful, only HDMI cables and one optical for a Sony CD Jukebox. The unit came with a Bluetooth receiver that plugs into the rear of the unit. The only item of note at this stage of setup was that my Vandersteen sub has a ground wire for eliminating ground loops. I had it attached to a chassis screw on the rear of the 990. I couldn't loosen any of the screws on the back of the 976 but could loosen one of the side screws securing the cover. Works for me.

Unit is attractive in a simple, straightforward way. My only complaint is that the blue led surrounding the power button is god awful bright. I hate extraneous lights to begin with, my room glows at night with all the little leds when everything is turned off. The remote is also quite nice, feels like aluminum face. The battery door remains attached when open so it won't fall un the floor under the couch, also a nice touch.
The vol +- buttons are the same size and shape as the other buttons which is a bit annoying. I use a Harmony remote for most normal functions so not a problem for me. This brings me to the first shortcomings I found. First, the 976 is not in the Harmony database, and I am told by Peter (more on that later) in won't be added by the Harmony folk. Since my remote never seems to work in code learning mode I was forced to tell it I had a model 975. At least the important buttons work (power, volume) and most inputs will switch but you have to map the 975 names to the 976 names. Only annoyance is that the 975 has fewer input so for me, one is not accessible for now from the Harmony. While on inputs, the names can't be edited and Pete tells me that will not change for this product but the will be other products.

Now for sound and picture. A warning that I have only watched some TV (Dish network) and one 4K disc thus far. Picture is great, I didn't notice any difference between the 976 doing the switching and my previous HDMI directly to the TV connections. Switching inputs is slow with some screen blinking before it settles down. Partly that is the LG, it puts up pretty pictures and some silly messages when it doesn't detect a signal. Sound for me was night and day over the 990. I'm retired, getting on a bit in years, and some hearing issues. I was loosing a lot of dialog if the volume wasn't sufficient before but I didn't loose one word yesterday with the 976 doing the work. I haven't listened to any music yet, perhaps this afternoon.

Forgot to mention, setup was the auto setup with the included mic. That's all for now, hope this is useful. I almost forgot to mention that after I got it initially setup I headed out for some grocery shopping. As I arrived at the store I got a phone call from Peter Tribeman at Outlaw. He said I was one of the first to receive a 976 and he was anxious for first impressions. We must have talked for 20-30 minutes about the 976, pluses, minuses, design tradeoffs etc. I was very impressed with them calling and spending so much time with me. It shows their dedication to producing a quality product and their interest in taking good care of us all. By the way, for those who ordered already, Peter said they brought an initial, large batch over by airplane so the could get them out to people to prove it is a real product. The balance are coming by ship.

Thank you for your comments. Did Peter explain why Harmony won't add this to their database? Which Harmony are you using? I have the 650 and it will learn codes from other remotes, although it would take a bit of time to transfer them from the 976 to the Harmony. This is a bit disconcerting.

I used the 950 briefly and it was a challenge, at times, with the remote and input identification. Using the Harmony, the names could be changed to accommodate my setup.

Looking forward to your further comments on sound quality for different sources. That is the important thing.

Thanks for posting your impressions of the 976. I hope to have mine soon. I hope they, Harmony and Outlaw, get over whatever reason the 976 won't be in the Harmony database. What a PITA it will be to have to "learn" the 976 codes into my new 950 remote that are not the same as the 975! I'm not too concerned about the 976 input names as I will be able to name the Harmony's Activities. It will be interesting to see how my new LG TV and the 976 work together when switching between sources. I plan on using an Apple TV, cable box and my OPPO.

Very good news on the 976's sound. I'm also upgrading from a 990 and besides the convenience of HDMI throughout, the improvement in DACs/sound was what I was looking forward to the most. Did you check the auto setup to see if it got all the parameters correct? I imagine I will do mine manually. Lastly, are you planning to use the 976's PEQ capabilities?

I have a Harmony One. I've had no luck getting it to learn codes no matter the angles of distance I hold the two remotes. No good explanation for why they won't add it, they are waiting for some owner to create the right codes or some such thing and then they will take copy and release. I think that's what he said.

I have a similar setup. I just talked to Peter again and he said the codes will be coming in the next few weeks. He'll be posting about it shortly. The sound is outstanding in comparison to the 990. I'll post more later today or tomorrow but it is night and day. As an example, I put on a Sara Bareilles disc that was recored live, playing it on the Direct setting and I needed to walk up to the speaker to be sure it wasn't a surround mode. There was a real sense of the hall it was recorded in, as though it was in surround but it was only the stereo fronts.

I haven't looked at what the auto setup did, will check later. As far as PEQ, I'm not familiar with the process but will probably look into it. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

bbaggin5,


Thank you so much for your feedback. The comments are very helpful to us.

We are all really excited that we are finally delivering the 976. I wanted to call the first three recipients of the processor to learn about their reactions first hand and answer any questions they might have. Today I will try to randomly contact a few more customers elsewhere in the country to ask for their early impressions of the 976.

I'd like to address a couple of your comments:

Regarding the brightness of the power button, the arguments always range from "I can't tell it's on in a bright room!" to "it's a nightlight in a dark room!" We will look at that again.

As for the Harmony codes, because this product is so new we have not yet had a chance to upload the new codes. In the near future that information will be ready to download.

Good News! the promised "fast boat" has arrived and the remaining units of our first production have just been delivered to our warehouse facilities. Starting tomorrow we will begin shipping out large quantities of 976's so that everyone who has placed an order will get their units for the holidays, or even much sooner.


Finally, we want to thank all of those who kept the faith that we would deliver a special processor in the under $900 price range. We believe it is a worthy successor to our Model 975.

Best regards,

Peter

Thanks for your additional input regarding the sound. I know the umik-1 is a bit expensive but I got one a few weeks ago and it has been worth it so far. With REW and the umik-1 I can now see what is going on in my room. If I can get REW to work with the 976, I doubt I will miss losing Audyssey in my current Marantz AVR.

I have a UMIK-1 coming and I'm looking forward to seeing how my family room behaves. I have already updated to REW V5.19 Beta 7 that includes the 976. I've never had any type of room correction so it will be interesting to toggle between applying PEQ and not. Did REW show any spikes or nulls in your room?

I have about a 20dB increase between 25Hz and 60Hz.

20dB is quite a bump. I think I have a similar increase in low frequencies in my family room and I always thought it was my modest subwoofer that was not up to the task. I suspect after applying the 976's PEQ settings your bass/LFE will be much less boomy and I'm hoping to achieve similar positive results.