if you hear hiss at the listening position, without straining to purposely hear it, send it back. if you don't, keep it.

meeting specs is something this industry as a whole has never done. speaker response numbers, wattage numbers, thd numbers, jitter and dither numbers are all routinely rigged to be misleading and, in some cases, downright false.

i have to disagree that "many, many, preamps are quiet". a muted preamp isn't quiet...it's muted. plenty of other prepros hiss. i don't mean preamps, i mean prepros with the options built into the 950 having 5 or more sources plugged into them and driving kilowatt, all in one amps that have no freakin volume controls (whoever thought that one up?)

i doubt many prepros could pass the tests against specs that are posted in this forum. i also doubt that many, many of them at all price points are quiet.