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.