My 970h sounded really good, very very enjoyable, but it was no match for my $3000 Cary cdp. The Cary had way more authority, larger soundstage, and a more saturated sound.
I traded up to the 980 to get 1080p upconversion for my new Panasonic plasma. To my surprise, the 980 does seem competition for my Cary player (now a $2500 Cary 308T). The Cary sound is still meater, richer, and still the king, but the 980 sound is saturated, very realistic.... and I can definitely see building a high end system around it.
I was caught off guard at the improvement in the Oppo sound.
There is some possibility that the improvement is in part due to my taking extra time working with the menu's of the unit, making all the settings appropriate for audio (e.g. turn off the HDMI output since I'm using just the analogue outs for the moment, etc.). I had never done that with the 970.
Art
I traded up to the 980 to get 1080p upconversion for my new Panasonic plasma. To my surprise, the 980 does seem competition for my Cary player (now a $2500 Cary 308T). The Cary sound is still meater, richer, and still the king, but the 980 sound is saturated, very realistic.... and I can definitely see building a high end system around it.
I was caught off guard at the improvement in the Oppo sound.
There is some possibility that the improvement is in part due to my taking extra time working with the menu's of the unit, making all the settings appropriate for audio (e.g. turn off the HDMI output since I'm using just the analogue outs for the moment, etc.). I had never done that with the 970.
Art