I am extremely intrigued by this piece of hardware.

I have a Sony TA-E9000ES pre/pro now, which I am mostly quite happy with. But I am looking to change to something with (THX) Surround EX/DTS-ES support and 5.1 (or better yet, 7.1 analog inputs).

Here are some features that I would forward to in the 950:

1) 5.1, or preferably, 7.1 analog inputs.

2) Dolby Digital (THX) Surround EX/DTS-ES discrete. Also, the unit *must* have sound fields that take advantage of the rear channel(s) for std DD/DTS discs. (I.e., using Dolby Pro Logic deprocessing of the L + R rears to create the rear C speaker as typically done for genuine EX/DTS-ES DVDs, can result in a collapse of the rear sound field if there's too much shared, mono info between the L + R rears as possible on std DD/DTS discs. For std DD/DTS discs, there could be simple *averaging* of the signal between the L + R rears into the rear center.) I almost got a B&K Ref 30, except that it doesn't have 6.1 sound fields for std DD/DTS disc.

3) Flexible bass management: individually setable crossover freqs between "sets" of speakers. One value for L + R mains, one value for L + R rears, and maybe a value for front center, and another for rear center(s) speakers. 10 Hz increments from 40 to 120 Hz.

4) Internal digital processing of *at least* 24 bit/96 kHz. This is for crossing over the mains to the sub, and even desirable for DD/DTS surround field processing. (The B&K has this, but drops down to 48 kHz for surround processing.) And, if you got to 24/192, I wouldn't even have heartburn about doing DVD-A/SACD bass management digitally!

5) Bass management must be available for 2 channel/stereo listening.

6) At least 1 digital output for recording. 2 would be better.

7) Re EQ.

8) THX post processing.

9) Nameable inputs.

10) Auto speaker level calibration/distance calibration. (The Parasound AVC-2500u has this. But then you have to buy a separate "volume card" to control the volume of the 5.1 analog inputs!)

11) Software upgradeable. *And*, a history by the manufacturer of providing software upgrades.

12) Great 2 channel stereo sound.

13) Headphone output.

14) Acceptable, useable remote.

Cheers!