Thinking About buying the 970

Hi All (new here)

I'm thinking about buying the 970, but this "No Audio" stuff is bothering me, so I have a couple of questions (since it doesn't seem completely fixed)

1) What exactly are the symtoms of the "No Audio Problem"?

2) If I was rolling dice - What percentage of 970 owners have to deal w/ the "No Audio Problem"?

Thanks in Advance

Welcome to the saloon, drcruz. Glad to have you around.

1) My understanding is that there are some cases when the 970 starts to acquire a digital audio signal (either from changing inputs or from a change in signal format from an already-selected source) and it never kicks in. Cycling the 970 off and back on seems to be the most reliable way to get audio going again.

2) The folks that have experienced it seem to see it occur with varying degrees of regularity (although the two firmware updates developed to address it seem to have reduced the regularity and the number of affected users), but between the 1070 and 970 there are a bunch of units in the field that have not reported the problem. I'm not sure if even Outlaw has a really definitive number on this, but if I had to take a SWAG as to what percentage have been affected I'd probably put the number of affected units in the range of 1% to 3%. (That's based in part on my "squeaky wheel" theory of internet forum traffic - that theory says that folks that have questions or problems with a product are significantly more likely to appear in online forums than folks who are satisfied.)

Hi Gonk;
I recognize you from AVS and AV123. I have a new Emo LMC that loses audio between cuts of a CD, then re-acquires about .5 seconds into the next track. The 970 doen't do THAT does it?

1. Gonk doesn't own the 970.
2. Gonk doesn't know for a fact how many units are affected by this annoying bug.
3. If the 970 doesn't "get" a signal immediately, it won't get it at all... besides restarting the unit or cycling through audio modes.
4. Welcome to the forum.

Hey sportsound, glad to see you dropping by here. The loss of audio you describe suggests that the CD's audio bitstream is being briefly interrupted and the LMC-1 is re-acquiring the signal from scratch (with an acquisition time that's long enough to cause the first bit of audio on the next track to be lost). As iardon points out, I don't have a 970, but I've been rattling around this forum for years and have watched folks talk about both the 1070 and the 970 - the reports that I've heard indicate that the signal acquisition time is slightly slower than the 990 but noticeably faster than the 950 was. On my 950, the signal acquisition time was noticeable but not long enough to lose the start of a track except on a few discs that started playing the instant the first track started (it didn't re-acquire between tracks on any of the discs I have). Based on that, I would not expect the 970 to behave the same as your LMC-1 is.

I certainly don't know for a fact how many 970's are affected (hence the SWAG - "scientific wild ass guess" - in my previous post), but I've watched the debates of the issue and I've watched other discussions in this and other forums. That's the basis of my SWAG. Based just on the description of it, the "no audio" bug is undeniably annoying, but that actually reinforces the isolated nature of it (people that encounter it in their systems are understandably going to report it, while folks that don't may never come here to find out about it and report the absence of it in their systems).

Hello and welcome to the forum. I've had a 970 since they were first available (December 2005) and use it 5-6 days a week. If the symptom occurs there is "no audio" when the unit is first switched on out of standby - it doesn't pick up on an input's signal. If I switch to another input and then back it picks the signal up every time. I have never had to cycle the power to get sound back. Once the 970 is on it switches inputs with either digital or analog signals without fail. I have the latest software revision (May `06) and have only experienced the problem once or twice since May. Prior to that it would happen once a week or so. Most people have not had the issue at all and I would suspect the percentage that have had it is very low, otherwise there would be a lot more posts about it on more than just the Outlaw forum.

My 970 has never "dropped" a signal once it acquired it, and it does acquire a digital signal quickly. Overall I've been happy with the 970 and one or two occurrences of "no audio" in two months time doesn't strike me as anything to worry about. Other than that it has been problem free and sounds great. Outlaw has earned their rep as having great product support and their customer service is better than most reputable brick & mortar retailers. The 970 is hard to compete with when you take its features, sound quality, build quality, being software upgradeable and low price into consideration.

Thanks everyone.

2 more questions:

How well does the 5 Channel Stereo work?

I just bought the new LMC-1 and there are a couple things I'm not happy with. For one thing, in PLIIx Matrix (AKA "Party Mode") I do not get sound from the rear channels. I can't get the OSD to show on my PDP.

Is the hieght of the 970 6", including the feet?

The 5-channel and 7-channel stereo modes are exactly what they claim to be: left channel data is copied to the left surround (and left rear surround in 7-channel), right channel data is copied to the right surround (and right rear surround in 7-channel), and the left and right are summed for the center channel. You tend to get a higher overall SPL level at the same volume setting because of the additional sources. I've used it for background music and been pretty pleased with the result.

Thanks Gonk...

Can anybody out there answer the 970 height question? Does the 6" height of the 970 include the feet?

Thanks again Everyone

Yes, 6" includes the feet.

Scott

I aggree with Audioholic, the sound quality for the price can not be beat!

But I think the NO AUDIO problem is very prevlent, It doesent happen very often to me if you follow the rules above. Make sure the signal is present before firing up the 970 then I nearly never get it. Cycling the inputs always fixes it for me.

I think the reason everyone is not complaining is that it is seldom enough not to be a big deal for most of us. The latest software Beta took it from about twice a week to about Twice a month. but I had to reload it three times before the video checkerboard problem on the componet outputs which came with this upgrade disapeared.

So the software still needs work but the problem was never bad enough to return.

A little buggy but a great unit.

GREAT! Thanks bunches.

Hi All,
I just ordered a 970. I am in a major HT upgrade mode. A new monitor and DVD player are forcing me to bring the processor quality more in line! I went from Adcom separates from the late 90's to a DD/DTS 7.1 Pioneer receiver about 3 years ago. Couldn't handle the amp section, on the receiver, so added a newer, (at the time) Adcom 5 channel amp. Worked much better for the audio portions, running only the rears from the receiver.

It has been very interesting reading the forum over the past week, or so. From ectasy to "no audio" and back again!

The HT rig is separate from my audio rig, which is, IMHO, good, but pretty old school.

Now the part, at which I am not very good, waiting for the delivery truck!!

Cheers,
Geary

Welcome to the forum Galyons.

Best wishes for the waiting, GALyons. Let us know how it goes!