I am a Outlaw newbie. Recently jumped on a 950 after the Soundhound version was announced. My 950 has only been in operation 3 days so far. BTW my unit has no dots, but the serial # starts off with 02. No noticeable hiss or humm so far and I have very sensitive speakers all around. One thing I have noticed is that you really have to step on the volume compared to my old processor, but the sound quality of the 950 is far superior however.

AJ- I had the digital version of the Rad Shack meter for a short time. That thing chewed through batteries like I couldn't believe. I swapped it for the analog model (same meter, but better resolution in terms of sub 1 dB changes), and I'm still on my original battery, and it's more than 3 years old! That LCD display on the digital version is a power hog...

So of all you blue dotters, who get the annoying clicking mute and who doesn't? I am using the optical input from a DVD player.

Mine (blue dot) has no hiss unless I turn the trims and the volume all the way up, then I can hear it from about 6 inches. If I tried to play it that loud, however, I would destroy my equipment and my hearing. At reference level (very loud), with nothing playing, I can switch between inputs, both digital and analog, with no pops, and a VERY FAINT EAR TO TWEETER HISS. In other words, my blue dot is "empty morgue" quiet. When I first hooked it up, I had a hum in all speakers. I knew it was AC induced, and checked all my interconnects and my cable feed. When I went to unplug everything and begin the rerouting process, I unplugged one of my equalizers, and realized that I had failed to put a cheater plug on the end of a 3-prong power cord. I installed one and now there is nothing, and I mean nothing, coming out of my speakers that I don't want to hear.

Soundhound,
Was visiting the forum the other day when you were talking to Willscary about calibrating his system by having the 950 at "0" and the main volume at "00", and use the volume pots on the power amps to get 75db. I had received my replacement Blue Dot the same day and had already calibrated my 950 at "00" and found it to be very loud. I than tried lowering the setting on the 950 to "-8" and calibrated again. That was it, finally, this is what I had hoped my first 950 would sound like.
But after reading your thoughts about using the power pots on the amp's to calibrate the speakers I said why not give it a try. A fellow gunslinger named Youngguns came over and got behind all that gear to set the Parasound amps. In a few minutes it was done. I think the sound, to my ears, is even better and well worth the little effort that it took. Again thanks, to you and others who use this forum to help solve some of the everyday problems that come up and drive some of us crazy.

Dobeman:

I'm glad somebody somebody finally tried that tweak! Great to hear it improved the sound for you. Can't beat the price

Truth be known, that is the way I always used to set it up. With 2 little ones in the house, I was always afraid to have the amps all the way up for fear of having one of them accidentally turn it WAY up and blow something.

Enter the other day...I noticed that bypass was much louder than going through the dsp. I realized that the channel trims are dsp, and that by setting all trims to zero I could switch between any source, analog, digital, or bypass, and have the same volume (with exception to the recorded level of the source, for example, a loud commercial vs the actual tv show). Now I set all trims to zero, adjust the pots on the back of the amp and the subwoofer for trim control, and leave it at that.

AJ- Maybe a data pt for you: I'm using the coax input.

AJ- I too am using the coax cable for DVD and cannot notice it muting at all. However, my CD is connected via an optical cable and I can hear the mute between tracks and disc changes.

Scott