Ckung,
I do use the 970 as a transport, but started out using it as a stand alone unit for 1 year. When I bought it, the 970 and 980 were both available similtaneously. I bought the 970 because the Absolute sound said the 970 was better sounding and the 980 was a bit harsher. Since the 970 is not available the A-sound now recommends the 980 as they only recommend current products.
At the time I owned the 970 I also owned the Consonance CD120 Linear cdp at $995 USD. The Consonance was vastly better. My previous cdp, the Cary 308 was also better by a large margine. You will notice the difference in finese, soundstage, and elegance of presentation. But the Oppo does get most thing correct, just after using it for a while I noticed a roughness that bothered me.
I since sold the Consonance a bought the Benchmark DAC to use with the Oppo. I went the DAC route because I can use its analogue volume output direct into a tube amp and upgrade the source later. I will upgrade the Oppo sometime to a better DVD or BluRay player.
If using the Oppo with an outboard DAC use the Raw digital output setting, as the PCM setting does use some of the internal digital soundfield processing. With the PCM output > DAC it sounds like a $900 cdp, but with Raw output > DAC it sound much much better, maybe a $1.5k-2k cdp.
I hope this helps clarify my uses of the Oppo 970.
