Food for thought:
If I didn't already have my 990 I would order separates from Outlaw & Emotiva to utilize their trial period for testing. In home with your own room acoustics & speakers is really the only way to know which sounds best in your environment.

I asked for opinions also & was glad to get them as they are reassuring. When I bought my 990 there wasn't another Emotiva type company I felt was comparable to Outlaw. My point is, what's $50-80 for return shipping in the greater scheme of things. Assuming Emotiva's trial/return policy is similar to Outlaw's.

This afternoon I had 3 long phone calls with Emotiva to get more information about the MMC and IPS and also just general company history etc. Really nice and helpful people (thanks Kathy, Lonnie and Mark if you read this) who were very professional and said nothing about Outlaw but gave me a lot of confidence in their own products.

Long story short I am getting the Emotiva (at least for free 30 day trial as Arky suggested) - they also currently offer a 40% discount on upgrading to any future pre/pro device (unlimited timeframe) which is nice for my next purchase in 3 years.

I will let you know how it goes, and thanks for all your help and suggestions. If anyone wants detailed reviews/pics etc I can try to do that.

Just out of curiosity, you mentioned that you called Emotiva, did you talk to anyone at Outlaw? I'm sure that the Emo folks are as nice and helpful as everyone says, but from a support standpoint, the one thing that would concern me is their lack of a forum such as this one where there is a commumity to answer questions such as you have asked here.

Question for anyone. I haven't taken the time to upgrade my firmware yet. Outlaw doesn't charge for the upgrade right? Couldn't this become a big deal as processing technology changes? I believe B&K, Sunfire & some others charge for this service & it wasn't cheap IIRC, could be wrong. Will Emotiva charge? My thinking could be flawed but practically everyone wants the latest processing available.

As music is your main priority,and if Emotiva doesn't tickle your fancy, the 990 is a very musical pre pro.
I made my deccission to purchase the 990 based on the 990's bass management feature for DVD-A/ SACD formats. Even though my DVD player aplies bass management the 990 does a much better job.All my multi channel music sounds so much better hrough the 990. On 2 channel it also sounds great, but it was the multi channel recordings that floored me.
If the Emotiva falls short don't hesitate trying the 990. I would think any pre pro will sound great through your JM lab speakers.

No charge from Outlaw - just download the update and go. Emotiva likewise wouldn't charge for firmware updates on the DMC-1 and MMC-1 (at least not if they want to keep their customer base), but the LMC-1 apparently will still require shipment back to Tennessee (with the owner paying shipping) for at least some firmware updates - see this thread for the ongoing LMC-1 saga.

If they both have 30 day return periods, why don't you face them off?

MMC owners could be hard to find because it only recently started shipping. Since the MMC/DMC are identical except HDMI switching vs balanced outputs, and remote, comments about the DMC would follow for the MMC.

I also think that because of the close relationship between Dan and Mark, AV123 will be the forum for Emotiva users for the time being.