So, I got the 950 and 755 combo finally last evening, after reading about the 950 for months and even passing up my original pre-order.

It took me a good 2.5 hours to rip my HT rack apart and rebuild it with new technology, it's bigger, stronger, faster...

Initial impressions. The 950 is great thus far, far superior to the Marantz AV600/Technics SH_AC600D combo I had been using before. I like the fact that Outlaw does not require the use of the On Screen Display function to configure the 950. I'm out of inputs and I don't want to do video switching unless there's no other choice.

One thing I noticed, is the Technics, a comfortable listening level was around -30/-25, where on the 950, it is more like -20. It must just be a difference in the scale setting between components. But it made it tougher for me to figure out equivalent listening levels.

One gotcha, as I was configuring my digital inputs, I was trying to set my Dish default as Dolby Digital. However, the dish was on, and was not outputting DD at that time, so the 950 wouldn't let me select that as the default. I thought that was interesting. Plus, I'm not getting any sound from that input right now, so I'm not sure what is going on there...

Also, since I'm only in 5.1 mode, does this mean the 950 will not allow me to select DD-EX or DTS-ES? I was trying Attack of the Clones, and it auto picked DD and wouldn't allow me to select EX even those the disk is in EX. That's normal I expect, just asking.

Anyway, it sounds great, I'm not sure the 755 was a major upgrade over the Marantz MA500 monoblocks I was using, but it sure is easier and cleaner wiring everything up! I'm going to live with the 755 for awhile and see how I like it...

New electronics are so exciting, sorry if I'm repeating things everyone already knows...

Downsides thus far. I don't like the source up/down arrows, I'd rather have a direct selection on the front panel. Also, the display is a little small, could be bigger/easier to read. My suggestion would be to center the volume in the screen, and move the input selection and processing type to the corners. Those could be slightly smaller, since they're generally viewed once when you first start using it...

I'm sure I'll have more as I start using it and getting it all dialed in...

...Jim