Yo. You see there are two ways to increase the output of the 950: via the volume control or VIA THE CHANNEL CALIBRATION MENU. Now our friend 4HT has very ineffecient speakers. His Maggies are like 85 db efficient, on a good day. My M&K S-150's are 90-91db efficient and -2 gets me to reference at 0DB with my amp. I would wager that 4HT's inefficient Maggies should be set at around +2 or +3. He instead has them set at 0 and -2 so he is losing around 5db minimum of output because he hasn't calibrated his system. Reference is not relative, it is absolute. If you haven't calibrated your system so that you know what reference is, all this talk about output level is meaningless. Relative output means squat. Absolute output calibrated to reference: we can talk. Some of you rather than arguing from ignorance should try and learn something. Maybe then you'll be able to solve your output issues. The THX/Dolby Digital system used for films is a closed system with a well defined reference. If you care about the reference great, we can talk intelligently. If not, go wallow in your ignorance. Sorry to be so harsh, but some people clearly revel in arguing for arguing's sake with no desire to learn something.