950 vs. Inexpensive Receiver

I've had my trusty 950 as the core of my system for the past five years. My upgrade plans are a bit ahead of Outlaw's current offerings, however, and I'm considering retiring my 950 in favor of one of the new, inexpensive HDMI receivers as a short term solution until the new Outlaw HDMI processor hits the market.

Several people have told me that they feel digital technology has advanced enough over the past five years that I wouldn't notice any drop off in audio quality with one of these new receivers vs. my Outlaw 950, and I'd be able to take advantage of the higher rez formats to boot.

Do any of you have experience with this? Anyone using one of the newer receivers and can compare the sound quality to the older Outlaw gear?

Thanks!

Digital technology is always moving these days. DSP has undergone some significant changes, of course, but I don't know that DAC's have undercome an equivalent change. And that doesn't factor in analog design, which is still important. Just grabbing any old receiver is not necessarily going to yield a match to the 950 for sound quality - even if you get one that has pre-amp outputs so you can use your separate amps.

It is a very common misconception to assume that audio technology is advancing at the same rate as computer technology - this is far from true! As a matter of fact, at least in the analog domain, the very same ICs op-amps which were introduced in 1980 are still used and current (the 5534 and TL072 families). Digital processing has only advanced in the sense that more computational horsepower is available for some DSP functions, but this is not an earth shaking advance by a long shot.

I still use a 950 for movie playback (although I haven't made the switch to HD video formats with the lossless audio formats). It is still current from a sound quality standpoint in all other respects. As a matter of fact, up until a few years ago, I mixed, mastered, edited and restored the music soundtracks for many feature films in my studio/theater, and the final playback check was done through the 950.

So, unless you need HDMI and want to play back the newer lossless movie sound formats, I'd hold on to that 950 - it is still current.

I really like the 950, but I am getting a bit antsy to be able to go lossless...I know some of the newer BD players coming out have the ability to decode everything and pass the audio over analog outs...I just hope the damn things work better than the current crop.

I can't say I'm crazy about the DACs in the 950 (gripe is mainly with music), but if they aren't clearly better in some of the newer receivers then I'll just wait a bit.

Thanks guys!