As curegeorg noted, there is no problem with mixing different manufacturers' products (such as an Outlaw amp and a different company's pre/pro).

Also as curegeorg points out, getting into a "what's the best pre/pro" debate on a manufacturer's forum can be a bit of a hot potato. You might want to look at this chart , and of course some people have chosen to use a receiver as a pre/pro (receivers are more likely to get the latest surround processing first because they come from the larger companies that can afford the fast-track design costs). There are some alternatives to chose from.

The 950 may not offer the decoding modes you mentioned (Dolby Headphone, DTS 96/24, or Pro Logic IIx), but it is still a very respectable value. Also, it is worth noting that some of those formats are not new, but have seen very slow adoption in hardware and/or limited software support. HDCD, for example, has been around for many, many years, but in general HDCD decoding is handled at the CD player and even after all these years it can be difficult to find HDCD encoded discs (I think I have one in my library of 200+ discs).

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