I've got to admit I'm still on the fence about the 998. Not the unit itself, but whether I really need it in my situation. My oppo decodes the uncompressed audio on BDs so there is not an overriding need for a pre/pro to handle this task. The oppo also does a very nice job upconverting DVDs using ABTs video processing. The two things that could sway me are Trinnov and the quality of the video processing for 480i sources. I guess we will eventually know if Trinnov is worth the upgrade for acoustically challenged rooms (like mine!). Is there any hint on who will implement the video processing in the 998?
I have an oppo too and I don't have an urgent need to upgrade other than the bug in my butt. On the other hand, I now have more HDMI components than my TV has inputs for and the audio is being fed to the 990 via interconnects and spdif. So for some sources I'm using component video and audio because of the limited inputs on my tv. I'm also not taking full advantage of the audio capabilities. If the 998 has 5 or more HDMI inputs, then I'm golden. I never thought I'd need that many, but I'm already there and I think I'll be adding a few internet based components in the future.
However, after reading
this review of the Sherwood 972, I'm very interested in future trinnov based surround processors. So I'll wait and suffer through fairly good audio and video.
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