Well put, Jeff. That's the heart of the matter. Sonically, the 950 gave me very good performance. The only area that was a bit lacking had to do with some convenience issues as I've noted previously in this thread. My installation is a fairly standard one. There are no weird angles in my room and very little that has to be "tuned" to accommodate the space. True, my MC-8 has parameters to allow for speaker delay, etc., etc. and most of those go unused. But when I decided to treat myself to a MC-8 for my birthday (old guys get to do that, sometimes ) I probably went from 95% sonic satisfaction to 99% sonic satisfaction. (I would have said "100%" but I like to leave my options open for future enhancements. Certainly, the MC-8 is perfect for my forseeable needs right now.)

Not everyone can afford to drop $6000 on a pre/pro and the 950, at $799 (or less in a combo package) brings a very similar sound to the affordable level. And at that price it just about reaches the level of disposable hardware so all the competing products that still cost at least a bit more than a 950 while offering some type of "upgradability" really don't offer an advantage in this regard. As some others have stated, you can keep the 950 until the "960" comes out and then just move on to the next level of features. (As an aside, the various support and upgrades that Outlaw has offered on the evolving 950 - less hiss, new chip, etc. - is service "above and beyond" in my book. Kudos to Outlaw for that.)

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RAF

My HT (latest update 07/27/03)
Now includes my Runco CL-710 DLP FP
and Lexicon MC-8

[This message has been edited by Robert A Fowkes (edited August 27, 2003).]