Kevin,

And I can appreciate that mode of thinking. But why not take it a step further and eliminate a few analogue connections and a whole bunch of room effects as well? Just plug a good set of headphones into the old pre-amp's headphone jack. In the case of my NAD 1130 it claims to have a "powerful headphone amplifier circuit: no power amp needed for full-volume headphone listening."

Personally if I want to listen in stereo I agree fully that running the 950 in stereo bypass works great. But I kinda like what the 950 does with its processor as well; it produces a sweet set of 1's and 0's.

Either way works great.

Jeff Mackwood