My 2 cents:

I have used my 970 with the firmware upgrade daily for two weeks now. I have not had the "no audio" problem when I first wake the 970 from Standby, as I had in the past, but I still get two problems that I've had all along.

First is that sometimes when I change channels on my digital cable box I still lose the audio. Sometimes changing the channel to another one and then back again will get the audio back again, sometimes that doesn't work either. It always works to switch the 970 momentarily to another input source then back to "Video 2", which is where I have the cable box connected, assigning Coax 2 for the audio. The cable box is one of those ubiquitous Motorola boxes.

Second is probably not the standard "no audio" problem, since it's not random, but happens every time I listen to a CD, for which I use an optical connection assigned to the "CD" input. Whenever I start a new CD, I have no sound until the track has played for one second or so. It's annoying because I always miss that first second, so I now routinely start the CD with the volume down, hit the button to start the track over once the 970 has picked up the digital signal, then turn the volume back up.

Finally, goomz - I also once had the problem of my 970 apparently freezing and being completely unresponsive to the remote. The problem went away when gonk reminded me that you have to hit "TNR" on the remote to get it to talk to the 970, if you've hit one of the other device buttons at the top (purposely or accidentally, which was the case for me since I don't use the remote for anything else).