I just got a call from Scott, asking my to chime in here with some additional positive news for everybody waiting for the hiss fix. Outlaw got at least a few "fixed" units in last week, and sent some of them out for some end-user testing. I received one of those tweaked units last Thursday afternoon, and have been poking and prodding it for a few days now. I was asked to pass along my findings, so here they are. I'm on my way out of town and will not be online until late Friday at the earliest, so if I don't reply to anyone's questions for a while that's why.

Yes, the new 950 has a significantly reduced noise floor. At Peter's suggestion, I switched the new 950 to an analog input (CD player, specifically, set to analog rather than digital) and turned it up to +10dB -- with no CD playing, of course -- to see what sort of hiss I might be able to get. I had to get within 6" to 12" of the tweeters on my mains to hear anything. At my listening position (a little over 6' from the speakers, probably), it was dead silent. For comparison, the center channel (which was getting no signal from the 950) had a hiss at about 2" distance simply due to the system - interference from power cords and the like. I think that would qualify as "fixed". For digital inputs, the results were quite a bit quieter. As an additional comparison, I hooked my old 950 back up and repeated the test. I had never noticed a humm or hiss problem at my listening position during normal use, but I discovered that at +10dB on an analog input with no signal there was a hiss from the old 950 that could be heard at the listening position. (I'll spare you the look my wife gave me when I told her about this test -- neither of us have noticed any objectionable noise from our old 950, and she considered this "max volume, no sound" test sort of silly. Can't say I blame her. ) For people experiencing an objectionable hiss currently, the new 950 should be a real eye-opener.

What about the sound of the new unit in general? Peter asked me to do an A/B comparison between the two, using some fairly revealing material if possible, to see if I could hear any difference and if there were any sonic trade-offs on the new unit. He didn't want to turn loose the new fixes if the result would lessen the 950 in any way. So I did some back-and-forth testing. Both units were connected to a Model 750 amp with the same type of cables, both were using optical cables to connect to my Yamaha CD changer, and both had the mains set to "large" so the sub wasn't involved (saved me switching the sub between the two units). My initial tests were done with the Theater Compensation mode inadvertently turned on on the new unit and off on the old unit. The new unit’s Theater Compensation, of course, was tempering the highs on some tracks, which had us a bit confused. (For those of you who think the 950 is a little harsh, you might play around a bit with Theater Compensation -- I've left it off on mine, but some people might prefer the sound with it on.) Once I caught my mistake, I re-visited some of the more revealing tracks. With both units using Theater Compensation, I could not distinguish between the two units at all. With Theater Compensation off on both units, I felt like the reduced noise floor on the new 950 was showing through, as it seemed like the sound might be a bit clearer or cleaner, particularly the highs. It was a very, very slight difference though – for anyone with a 950 that isn’t exhibiting hiss, you’ll be hard pressed to find a difference between the one you have and a new 950. In general, I would say that the sound of the new unit is essentially unchanged from that of the original unit (except for the reduced noise floor).

There have apparently been a few software tweaks along the way, too, and my test unit (as both Scott and Peter were quick to tell me before I even got it unboxed) has a setup quirk. The 950 has to be in a surround mode for the test tones to work on all of the channels. If you have the 950 in stereo mode when you go to calibrate with the test tones, the unit will show that it's sending all of the tones but will only send tones to the mains and sub. Pro Logic II will do fine for a surround mode (I tried it, in case it actually was looking for a multi-channel input), so even if you are using nothing but stereo analog connections to the 950 you won't have a problem. I don't know if this behavior applies only to the samples they are testing, but they wanted me and others to be aware of it. The new 950 is also a couple of dB quieter, so when I set my speaker levels I ended up bumping them all up a dB or two. Those are the only real differences I could find between the old unit and the new unit. The “standby” lights blinked out of sequence on the two when they were both paused at the same time, but I don’t think that really matters.

From the conversations I had with Peter last week, Scott’s post on Friday, and this new e-mail, it is clear that the Outlaws have decided that the changes included in the 950 I’ve been testing have satisfactorily solved the hiss problem. From what Scott told me, they should be shipping soon. Hang in there, crew. Good stuff is coming.

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

[This message has been edited by gonk (edited August 29, 2002).]