jeepers....and all I have to worry about is a big wind picking me and my little dog "toto' up!

Nothing really fun ever happens in _Dallas_

Same here for Minnesota. Just COLD.

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m-mmeyer
GO TWINS
My DVD's

Many of us have invited Outlaw to hear the 950 in our systems. They haven't take us up on it because I suspect they do know what the source of the problem is. Just that, yes, they must be having a hard time tracking down how to fix it. How to cause the problem? Use Klipsch (or other really high sensitivity) speakers, and/or Acurus (among other specific types of) amplification.

They should have known about its poor S/N measurements a while ago.

[This message has been edited by Will (edited November 06, 2002).]

Kevin,

Good observation!

Will

I do not own a 950 but find great pleasure in my 1050. After following this thread and other threads of discontent, I find it amazing that some peoples can't let go. It seems reasonable that if one were unhappy with a certain product that they would take advantage of the return policy and move on. There are all kinds of pre pros available. Surely the senseable thing to do is find the one that meets your needs and expectations.
Someone told me once, that, unfortunately common sense wasn't that common!
oh well just musings of an old man.

Being vocal accomplishes several things, among them:

- The squeaky wheel gets greased. Outlaw is very aware of this subject, and won't be allowed to forget soon. This awareness may or may not translate into a fixed 'C' revision for the 950, but you can bet the next prepro will get more internal examination.

- Potential customers deserve to know what to look for in their 30 day trial period. I wish there had been a list of 'known issues' listed prominently somewhere regarding the 1050. I've run into several of the 'known' problems after my 30 days were up and it kinda ticks me off.

- Any new workarounds will be injected into these topics, like the 'Merc fix' for double bass. This is a very cool thing to have access to, since often a good workaround is as good as a fix. The 'Merc fix' is particularly cool in this regard.

In the past I have never linked the many conversations I have seen about ‘Hiss’ in other systems. I’ll try to do this if I have time a bit in the future. It might be intreasting for those that do have the time and like to crunch specs when I can access model #’s to see if the Noise Floor manuf.listed on each of these models equals out to the SPL reading that some find in their own home systems.

Here’s Greg S setup: http://home.earthlink.net/~kfscoll/
And here’s what he said about his hiss when talking to another guy who had hiss in his Marantz.
“Let me know if you ever found a solution or if you just concluded that the hiss was "normal." The shop where I purchased my receiver from tells me that the hiss is simply the nature of the beast.
FWIW, my speakers are Klipsch References, which are extremely efficient and which tend to pick up the slightest bit of noise.”

“With the DVD input selected and the receiver set to "Analog Direct" mode, the level of hiss, though clearly audible at max gain, wasn't measurable (both A- and C-weighted, fast and slow), which means it was at most 50 dB at one inch from my tweeter at max gain. The CD input's level of hiss with the same receiver settings is even less. However, if I turn on any type of digital signal processing (DPL-II, dts-neo:6, etc.) when the receiver is in analog input mode, the noise floor raises significantly...I measured 71 dB at one inch from the tweeter. However, I suspect that's just what you get when you try to apply DSP to an analog signal, and it's easy to get around...only use DSP on digital signals! When I do that, the noise floor doesn't raise at all. In order to test the DSP noise floor with digital signals, though, I had to find a low-level digital source to compare to, because the receiver mutes its output when it can't detect a digital signal. So, I found a very low-level digital signal (I have a CD where several minutes of near-silence were recorded), and when I applied a DSP mode to this digital signal, the noise floor didn't raise at all -- completely different from the DSP's effect on analog signals.”

And here is a Chris T’s thoughts on the subject back to Greg S.
“I'd say that hiss is normal
Total hiss depends on the noise and condition of all the equiptment. It also includes any line noise that can be caused by lamps and appliances on the same circuit. And also be interference that wires/cables pick up from transformers and such. At max gain I get 55db measured 1 inch from my tweeter. This is on a sound card analog out and separate rotel amplification. If the layer of hiss bothers you during movies, then I'd consider it a time to isolate the problem. If the tweeter hisses at max volume then I don't think you should worry.”

That's interesting, but not uncommon. Hiss at maximum gain is not unusual or even rare, depending on how much excess gain a system has. A more useful figure is noise (hiss) at a usable gain setting, say noise level while listening to loud music. Every system I've ever had exhibited some noise at max gain, but never any significant amount at a gain setting that would equate to music at 100 db, or even 115 db. That would mean peaks of 25dbw with 90 db/watt speakers, or approximately 350 watts.

I think that's what some 950 users are hearing - noise at an otherwise useful gain setting. I suspect the '11' mark on the Marantz above is well into clipping, and thus not really useful.