Take note that when ARMOR is set to OFF, the output will be BINARY. This is wanted for converting file data to a binary gpg format.
With the ARMOR set to ON, the output is ASCII. This might be used for messaging (email, IM, IRC, etc).
Example with Armor on:
-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
hQIOA+9JbyriNorZEAf/UuCyC0T80XffXVkmewfrRSvtsYbNSGZFvSr+32jJT2fs
...
...
=YJ4D
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----