Good evening, Stasis. Hopefully I can help you out a bit. (I've been running a fever off and on for a couple days now, but no guarantees ).

Reviews? Yeah, there are a number of them scattered around (not counting AudioReview, which does require some very heavy sifting). There's Sound & Vision (from Outlaw's site), Perfect Vision , Home Theater Sound , and a few others around that are less mainstream ( Ron Epstein's review at HTF , Audiophile Audition , and some others that I'm probably missing). There are other published reviews, I believe, but those are the only ones I could find at the moment. EDIT: Here's another couple reviews - Enjoy the Music , Stereophile Guide to Home Theater

There are some folks around here who can better address the component quality issue. You can probably find higher grade parts if you want to pay more (even in the best of worlds, TANSTAAFL still applies, and the 950 is an $800 pre/pro), but the 950 is well made and does offer a lot of quality.

The final revisions to the 950 (the "blue dot" as we like to call it) did address the noise floor very, very well -- there are blue dot 950's in use with some very revealing speaker systems without problems.

As for the stereo bypass, the mains do get an untainted signal. If the mains are set to "small," a copy of the signal will be processed and a LFE signal provided to the sub. To avoid that, you'll need to set the mains to "large."

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gonk -- Saloon Links | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | 950 Review

[This message has been edited by gonk (edited November 13, 2003).]