I would bet that particular reviewer does own a 950 and, believe it or not, and posts here often! However, this is only a guess on my part.

Steves, jed and others:

If you believe that the guy who posted the admitedly wierd review at Audioreviews.com is wrong, why don't some of the folks here who actually own a 950 post their honest reviews to tell the true story.

I only wish my master had his 950, but they haven't gotten to him yet. You know, dog ears are VERY sensitive to hiss, so he's hopeful it won't have any. Based on everything I've read, it seems that BOTH of us will be pleased!

But what do I know, I'm only a dog!

ARF ARF, says Iggy, climbing back down from the keyboard to see if ours is here yet.

I think you may be barking up the wrong tree here, Iggy! Even though I don't agree with this person's finding's on the 950, I did not say he/she was wrong. My quip was only to point out that the reviewer might be a regular poster to this forum and not an Outlaw basher. I believe, for the most part, the reviews we see will be honest, individual assessments. Like the review posted by this particular individual. I understand that not everyone will believe the 950 is the best thing to come along since sliced bread- like I do! I can live with that. With shipments resuming, we should see a lot more reviews shortly. I look forward to reading yours! By the way, if you are also getting a 755 or 770, Iggy, don't chew on the power cord

No pun intended right steves!!

Iggy brings up a good point though, we'd love to see everyone's reviews on AudioReview .

steves:

OK, we're on the same wavelength. I never meant to imply that the 950 is the best thing since Kibbles & Bits. (Hey, throw me a bone -- literally!)

I agree that everyone IS entitled to their own opinion, provided that it is based on actual observation of a real unit, not a made up blast by someone trying to make a point. It looks to me that this forum has been very balanced in that regard, and I was only suggesting that those who haev their opinions post them outside this space.

But what so I know, I'm only a dog! ARF ARF

My 950 arrives tomorrow! Although I am NOT searching for hiss (I understand completely what is reasonable/normal), I am concerned and nervous about this. The reason I am nervous is becuase I have been battling hiss and hum for a while now. My HK Pro-Logic receiver has preouts for all channels, but I cannot use any but the main preouts since the others are full of noise - noise that I can hear loudly from my listening position. I also borrowed a friend's Adcom Pro-Logic preamp, and his center hissed so bad, I could hear that loudly from my listening position.

If I get my 950 all hooked up and it is silent from ~3 feet, I will be dancing around the room even before I play my first DVD. I am cautiously optimistic right now. I will report back tomorrow the results I get in my system.

I got mine!

I'll put other "review" stuff elsewhere, but I wanted to talk about the hiss.

This is only after about 30 min playing with it. Setting all the levels, playing parts of a CD and a DVD.

Mine does hiss more than the TA-E9000ES I have. At normal listening levels, I have to put my ear up to the tweeters to hear the hiss from the Sony. For the 950, I can hear it up to maybe 2 ft away. For some reason, the rear center seems worse than the other channels (maybe that speaker is a little more sensitive).

Big caveat: I have the 950 sitting out in front of my system. It is plugged into the wall for right now. (I wanted to make sure everything worked before I do the complete transplant.) When I get it plugged into my balanced power unit, I will post an update.

The rear center might be a problem, because that speaker is only 4 ft behind me.

For now, I only have my DVD player plugged into it, so basically I don't believe that it can be interference from power cords and other interconnects causing the problem (at least nothing that bothered the Sony), because the 950 is sitting on its box in front of my system by itself with the DVD player on top.

Oh, volume independent. Same hiss whether it's a stopped DVD, stopped CD in the DVD player, or the tuner with the volume turned down.

Note that the amount of hiss in 'analog' input mode is directly effected by the amount of channel trim 'boost' or 'cut' applied in the "Channel Calibration" or "Channel Trim" menus. Boosting the gain to "+10" in that menu makes the hiss much more noticable, to the point where I can hear it clearly at my listening position,15 feet away. This might help explain why some people are hearing more hiss than others.

SO....try to keep the settings at "0db" or below if possible. If your power amps have input gain controls, use these to set the sound level to 75db using pink noise test signals, while keeping the 950 channel trims at "0db".

My most hissful channel, rear center, I have set at -9 dB! So maybe it would even be worse if I had it closer to zero...

Well, balanced power doesn't help. There goes a theory I had all along.

(OK, now I'm chuckling at the comment a while ago of "people with their ears mashed against their tweeters" !) At my listening position, if I keep my head forward, can't hear the hiss. If I turn my head to the side so my ear faces my rear center, I can hear it.

If there's anything playing, music only CD, DVD, can't really hear it at all (you know, cause your brain is focussed on the content).

If I shut the 950 off and leave my amps on, no hiss. Not my amps.

Reckon I'll do the 30 days and see how I feel at the end.

But like I put in another thread, I still like it!

I'm not surprised that trying different power options didn't make any difference in the hiss. I've experienced that having good power generally just keeps static, buzzes and such crap out of the audio signal. It _is_ kind of strange that only your back channel has more hiss, however. Is it just as hissy if you have it set to LB/RB in the speaker setup menu? When I reduced the channel trim gain to -15db, my unit is extremely quiet, but I'd have to make up the gain elsewhere, and I'd be back where I started, hiss wise.