I'm using my 976 for mostly audio, but occasional video watching too. My source is an HTPC, using HDMI out into the 976, which connects to a very modest 40" video display. The 976 replaced a dead Emotiva UMC-200, which did not do this with an otherwise identical setup.

What happens, briefly, is that at the beginning of each track, the 976 introduces an audio "fade-in" which sometimes blots out the very beginning of the track. It's the kind of thing that, once one notices it, becomes a distraction.

Here's the best example I have found so far. In the Hendrix Band of Gypsys album, the song Changes begins with Hendrix saying, "Buddy Miles' gonna do a thing he wrote called...". When played back through the 976, it sounds like "gonna do a thing he wrote called...", that is, with, "Buddy Miles" cut off at the beginning. It's not the playback software doing this, as the UMC-200 I had previously didn't do it, and neither does a USB DAC hooked up to the system using the same playback software. Also, I have the 976 HDMI interface set to the default Windows sound driver. In this configuration, the sample rate and bit depth are set in the Windows Control Panel and never change. So the 976 is seeing a constant sample rate and bit depth throughout each listening session.

The HTPC is using an AMD A8-5500 APU with 8 GB of RAM, and all the latest AMD video, HDMI and chipset drivers are installed.

Another thing that concerns me in this regard is the possibility of misbehavior when doing REW measurements. If the fade-in occurs at the beginning of the REW sweep, there's the potential for the frequency response computed by REW to be different than it actually is at the low-frequency end. That is, the fade-in could appear to REW to be a roll-off of low frequencies that's not really there, since the REW sweep starts out at a somewhat lower frequency than the lowest frequency to be measured.