So, what exactly is a red dot unit???

"red dot" is the indicator used on the units provided as "hiss fix" replacements to people who received 950's before shipping stopped in May. The red dot indicated that the unit had the latest revisions included. I believe that subsequent production runs do not have the red dot, as they came off the assembly line with the revisions.

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

These would be the production runs from India as opposed to from Malasia.

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Matthew J. Hill
matt@idsi.net

ouch....

My impression from talking with Peter, was that (hopefully) when (and not if) they fix the hiss issue, I would get a new one. No 30 day limit. Now, if I wanted to return it after 30 days for some other reason, I'd be out of luck.

But I also made sure that I talked with them *before* the 30 days was up, to let them know that I did have hiss, and that I could live with it for now as long as I knew that they would keep working on it, and that I would get a new unit when it was fixed. If that makes sense.

The 950 has been out for about six months. A few months ago, before many 950's were out, the Outlaws stopped production in order to fix the hiss problem. When they thought they licked the problem (which in my case, they did not), the Outlaws offered to replace every single hissy 950. But now, many more people own the 950. If they do find a solution to the hiss problem now, they'd probably have an incredibly large number of people wanting to get replacement 950's. I doubt the Outlaws have too much of an incentive to find a solution. Afterall the 950 is probably selling like hotcakes despite the hiss (and UI problems). Perhaps, the Outlaws (or rather, Eastech) will come out with a 951 or a 950 Mark 2 in six months, that updates some of the UI bugs in the 950, and has a few new features, and incidentally fixes the hiss problem. Just speculatin'...

[This message has been edited by Will (edited October 18, 2002).]

Remember that the 950 rev 0 version that had hiss, affected a lot more people than now. So there would still be a lot less people's units to replace.

Plus, I don't know what their policy would be for example, if Bob Smith buys a unit now, says nothing, but then complains about hiss in 2004.

That's why I made sure to "complain" before my 30 days was up.

I would hope that the incentive to continue working on a solution is simply good customer service. And the desire to have even the small percentage of people now affected with hiss, to continue to buy Outlaw products.

Me? I'm a waitin for 1 of 3 things:

1) Hiss-fixed 950
2) The 950's big brother
3) H/K 7200

I can wait maybe 3 to 6 months to see what happens. Even with #1, I might still be tempted with 2 or 3. (You see, I have this thing about wanting Logic 7 on 5.1 sources for a reasonable price... ) I have a hope that the 950's big brother will have THX Ultra2 and/or Logic 7. (Notice that the new H/K's have the "triple crossover"? I'm hoping Outlaw traded that to H/K for L7... )

I wonder if most of the people who noticed a hiss on Rev 0 950 and got a revised 950, think the hiss went away. In my case, the hiss changed slightly and the sonics of the 950 changed slightly. So, at least in my case, I could not say the hiss changed much at all. But that's my experience. Perhaps, others may have noticed big improvements.

My guess is we won't see a from-scratch designed big brother pre/pro in 3 to 6 months. But I wouldn't be surprised if Eastech puts out incremental updates to the 950, in six months to a year. In fact, they may have to, by then, to keep the unit fresh and competitive. Hopefully by then Sherwood Newcastle and Yamaha or Sony will have nicely priced, and newer, offerings.

bbpj - have to ask, what amp/speakers are you running with your 950. By reducing the gains on my Parasound 2205 (by 1/4), I greatly reduced the hiss. Does your amp have manual gains?

Also,"when it ended I heard hiss from my speaker about 5 feet away". So during playback you heard what, hiss or the music?
What CD? I think we all can agree the some cd's hiss (Some louder than others) between tracks. You should continue to experiment/play around with things to try and lower your noise.

Hiss from 5 feet is far, how loud where you listening(you were studying, hence assume low). Have you calibrated your system since adding the 950?

Was your NAD a receiver or seperates? My Denon 3200 receiver is probably less hissy than my 950/2205 combo, but at the same time hiss was still there. Thing was I never even thought about it until this cropped up on the 950.

Will- Somehow get me your email id...

kevin5brownremovethisportionfornonspam@yahoo.com