I too have been contemplating upgrading to the 997. I have the 950/7100 and wanted to upgrade but recently bought the Panasonic DMP-55 blu ray player and connected it to the 950 via the multi channel analog inputs. The sound was a big improvement from regular DDigital/DTS. The only issue is that I have to swap out the connections when I want to listen to SACD/DVD audio on my Denon DVD player. Purchasing the 997 would eliminate this as it has HDMI but at a significant cost. Unless there is another compelling reason I am probably staying with my present set up.