Whew! Thank you, soundhound, Jed M, seattleguy, jgubman and Jason J, what you said make me feel much better. My situation is similar to what Jed described, the hiss disappears at the listening position while the volume is reduced to around -2dB. Based on all I heard from you, this is not something I would worry about any more. Just received my center speaker (the last piece of my HT system) today, cannot wait to start the evaluations with DVD movies.

Jason, I already got a RS SPL meter and calibrated my speakers following the instructions on 950 user manual. Both of the front speakers were set to -10dB.

Soundhound, I could not find your post about the 950 testing with lab equipment, can you do me a favor and provide the link? I am curious to know what you had done and found.

I would also like to extend my thanks to the whole forum, here I got answers to many of the questions I had during my research process. This is also one of the major reasons I decided to buy from Outlaw.