Thank you gonk....i appreciate your thoughts...helps put my mind at ease on this.

Yes, that is correct, using optical. My gut tells me to keep the 970 too, and your comments are helping me believe that is the right thing to do. I suspected that upsampling might not be quite as impressive on lossy content.... and it's interesting......the subscritpion 192k internet radio via itunes seems to often sound as good if not better than the 256k itunes plus songs i purchase and download to the laptop. I assume that's becuase the internet radio broadcast doesn't invole the hardrive? Both of these by the way are far superior to 128k or a direct ipod hook up. I can't listen to those on my system....they sound so flat and muted. But, they are fine on the ipod with headphones.