choosing between 976 vs 975

My 10-year old Onkyo receiver is dying on me, so my desire to upgrade to an Outlaw combo may be coming faster than I anticipated. I'm wrestling between a 976/5000 and 975/5000 combo. It's mainly used for Home Theater, though bluetooth for music is interesting, and it's for a 5.1 setup in a small family room, so I don't anticipate being interested in immersive or 7.1 any time soon.

I do have some 4k video components, so if I went with the 975, my base setup I presume would be optical from the TV to the processor, while the 976 would be HDMI from source to processor then TV. I'm not entirely clear if optical is sacrificing anything vs running HDMI directly into the processor.

Can anyone comment on the advantages of the 976 for my particular setup? Anything I should think about with either option?

Thanks.

HDMI is the way to go, optical is pretty much "legacy only" at this point because of content protect schemes...

If you go with the 975 you can also get the TE HDS-42 which will split the 4K video to your TV and send the HDMI audio to the 975. So you can get all HDMI connects with the 975 and not mess with optical.

The 976 gives you the added benefits of XLR outputs and PEQ along with the Bluetooth. If these are important to you then go with the 976.

I've been happy with my 975, though the PEQ of the 976 is intriguing.

If you are going to use your TV as a source, HDMI/ARC is the way to go. The optical audio capability is limited to the older audio codecs so you would lose the newer Dolby TrueHD and DTS-Master Audio enhanced codecs. Since you already have some 4K components go with the 976.

Can the Warranty on the 976 transfer to a 2nd owner of the unit ?

I RECIEVED THE ANSWER VIA E MAIL, YES IT IS TRANSFERABLE

OP: what did you buy? I recommend the 976