Nope, you're understanding it perfectly.

Just perfectly flawed. LOL.

Your premise is sound; it's just not electrically accurate; I know this because I plugged an IR emitter (same as LED) into the OUTPUT port, and directed it right at the device. NO SIGNAL was sent at all. Basically, a MONO minijack does not seem to work with the OUTPUT port.

This is why I'm trying to get Steve to confirm what type of connection the OUTPUT port is.

The test we're trying to confirm is whether the very low/no voltage 'PASSIVE' signal is enough to drive a device via a wire. That's why you'd need to hook the mono minijack wire from the 970's OUTPUT port into the device's INPUT port.

E.