The delay issue with Dish was one of the reasons I finally decided to switch from my 950 to a Lexicon MC-8. I noticed it and reported on it while beta testing the 950. At first the delay occured on a lot of sources (for example, I would lose some DVD digital audio during layer changes and during menu transitions), but Outlaw seems to have conquered everything but the delay on digital video sources like cable and satellite. I wrote about this on my web site. You can get to the exact article by using this link

http://rfowkes.com/html/lexiconmc-81.html

if you don't want to have to navigate my site.

While my Dish network delay (a variety of receivers including a 6000 and a 501 PVR) was long enough to become annoying, it certainly wasn't four seconds. That would drive me out of my mind and would not be acceptable under any circumstances.

Incidentally, this lock-on time seems to be something that most pre/pros deal with when acquiring digital signals. Even the Lexicon has a very minor delay but it is so short that I have never missed any audio as I did with the 950.

And I also concur with you that the 950 sounds beautiful. Once you lock on a signal (not that important except when channel surfing)you can't get better sound for the money.