I've always noticed hiss in any system I've had. The difference is in the past I only heard it at high vol during quiet passages. I wasn't looking for hiss with the 950 it was looking for me. No way I should hear hiss at 5 feet with low volume. Not acceptable. Didn't know about it until I read the posts after I noticed the problem.

My amp is an ATI 1505 which clips more easily than I thought it would (has no gain control).
My mains are PSB silveri's. Surrounds old polks that impressed me the other day. They actually get louder than the PSB's before the amp starts clipping (god help my tweeters). The speakers stand about 18 inches tall and have a tweeter, driver and passive bass radiotor. I was actually shocked at their output.
My old NAD stuff is about 18 years old now and they are seperates. I don't actually remember ever making my NAD 2200PE clip. If it does it has soft clipping which I appreciate more now that I have an Amp with out this feature.

I just hooked up my old preamp to the ATI to compare sound and hiss in 2 channel with the 950. My old preamp will put a huge hurt on my ATI and speakers if I crank the vol half way. Sound if fuller and hiss on same CD much worse. This is NOT MUSIC HISS it is unacceptable floor noise. NAD was doing it better 18 years ago and I wish outlaw would have made a $1100 prepro that doesn't have these problems and had better 2 channel sound.

I LOVE THE 950 FOR MOVIES!!!! IT ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!However, I like music better and I don't know if I can take the hiss. Also, maybe it is just my imagination??? but my old preamp just sounds richer. 950 is a little thin???






[This message has been edited by bbpj (edited October 19, 2002).]

bbpj:
You might consider the solution I used to get the best of movies and CDs, since my 950 hisses also. Break out that old preamp and put it in line with your left and right front channels. Plug the left and right outputs of the 950 into an aux input of the preamp and your CD player into another input. Then plug the output of this preamp into your power amps for the front left and right channels. Now, you can switch between the 950 for movies and your CD player for playing CDs. Just make a mark on the volume control of the preamp where the volume knob is,so you can return easily to the 'calibrated' level when playing movies. This system works extremely well for me, and sounds better than running my CD player through my 950, and the hiss is gone.

****Warning - Rant follows****

This whole hiss thing is really a stupid issue in a device that supposedly has "24 bit" ADCs and DACs. Do you know how quiet _true_ 24 bit resolution is? Well, it is 144db quiet. That is so quiet that practically no electronic device on the planet Earth can actually be that quiet, barring perhaps liquid nitrogen cooling to near absolute zero degrees. It is so quiet that if you made a recording and set the input level meters to _peak_ at minus 48db, you would _still_ have the entire dynamic range of CD left over. No microphone even comes close to being that quiet. No recording studio could ever be that quiet. And certainly no musicians would be that quiet. If you took a single, low noise transistor and fashoned a simple emmiter follower, it would already be above the noise floor of real 24 bit. The 950 would be dead quiet, even if it had an honest 18 bits of _real_ noise performance. Clearly, it is worse, much worse. In truth, I measured the actual noise of two 950s to be around the level of _12 bit_ performance. There is a major dis-connect here. As marketing departments tout "24 bit performance", they only mislead the consumer - as that claim is just plain false, and unethical. I have noticed a general "dumbing down" of audio starting about the time Home Theatre came to be. Speaker response curves look more like outdoor patio speakers of 20 years ago. And yes, digital electronics that are advertised as holding the promise of being dead quiet, are about as hissy as a half-decent cassette recorder of 20 years ago. Manufacturers used to be much more honest about their specs - products routinely _exceeded_ their specs when tested in reviews. The 950 flunked the noise measurement tests in Sound & Vision Magazine a few months ago. Something is very wrong here....

*****End of Rant****

[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited October 19, 2002).]

I remember it starting about the time CD came along and all the 'old timers' who understood analog pretty well started trying to 'prove' that digital couldn't really work. From the triangle wave vs. sine wave to the 'jitter' arguments, the effect has been a trend away from sound engineering principles.

Try explaining to a vinyl-phyle that their beloved has approximately 12 bit performance and you'll probably have a fight on your hands.

One saving grace is that as technology advances our ears don't, so it's easier and easier to get things 'quiet enough' and 'clear enough', but it REALLY ticks me off to see a modern device not meet it's specs by such a large margin.

Are there any other comparable units to the 950 on the market now for under $2000.

Does anthem sell their products over the internet??? Anyone know of a place that offers competetive pricing???

The Rotel 1066 pre/pro is the obvious competitor. It streets for around $1300, has less hiss and is less harsh and has a much better UI than the 950. But the 1066 does not have a tuner built in. Also its variable frequency crossovers are global for all channels.

... And you cannot get around the double bass problem on the 5.1 inputs on the Rotel unless you buy an ICBM ...

With the Outlaw you can, by engaging and using the 80 Hz analog crossover.

I put together a pre/pro chart several months ago. It's probably due for a little update, but it gives a pretty good idea of some of the most talked-about pre/pros. The Rotel that Will pointed out is probably the closest competitor at the moment.

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

bbpj,

I am running Silver i's too. I am using a Bryston 9B-ST to power them. I have hiss from 10'-12', which is worse than you. It is loudest from my C6i center.

As far as clipping, I have only clipped my amp during depth charges on U-571 at cranking levels. I also believe the PSB's 4 ohm impedance is a huge factor, since the speakers are quite efficient. I borrowed a friend's top-of-the-line Yamaha Integrated (last of the Pro-Logic models) and it sounded thin - no bass. Then I hooked up a bottom-of-the-line older B&K 2 channel amp and was sold on separates. It takes current to run the PSB's.

Also, I like the 2-channel of the 950, but I run a warmish DAC through the 950 with analog bypass. Not quite a dedicated 2-channel preamp as soundhog suggests, but very acceptable. A 2-channel preamp is one of my planned upgrades.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by bbpj:
[B]Are there any other comparable units to the 950 on the market now for under $2000.
___________________________________

THIS, gentlemen, is the bottom line of every issue. we all know the answer to bbpj's question.

from the rapidly changing formats to the license fees and agreement paperwork, to lack of standards in speaker setup, bass 'management', battles over which information should go where, at what word length and sampling rate, piracy battles, the complexity of trafficking every conceivable device in every conceivable way, it is a mammoth undertaking to design, manufacture, market, hell, even to write the manual for, distribute, troubleshoot, repair, replace and otherwise bring a modern prepro into enough satisfied hands, before the thing is hopelessly outdated, AND, make enough profit to justify the whole effort.
much less, for $899 plus shipping.

i use the piss out of this little gray box...every day. it never ceases to make me smile. i almost wish i had a problem with my 950, hiss or otherwise, so that i could sympathize with some of you, but i truly don't, and the option to return it remained for 30 days after purchase.

i think outlaw audio knocked the damn cover off the ball with this prepro. they are listening to every word said here. they'll do it again with the next generation prepro.

i'm so glad i didn't have to pay $3k for a bit better sound, a bit more options and a bit quieter unit. the difference allowed me to buy a very good dvd/sacd player, another pair of full range floor standers, an astoundingly good sub and take my lovely wife out for a nice meal. the movie was free and sounded better than any movie house i've been to.

Excellent perspective. I suspect spending more will fall into the 'diminishing returns' category, but every has a different tolerance for diminished returns I suppose. If I could get the AT clone for about what the Rotel streets for I'd rather just for the cosmetic appeal.

OTOH I have issues with something that isn't equipped with flashable firmware. That, to me, was a huge mistake.