Will: Good suggestion, but even if I don't have any neighbors with a 950, the 30-day trial from Outlaw is fine.

At this point, I'm fairly certain that a major factor in the less-than-stellar analog CD playback is my DVD player. While it works wonderfully for DVDs (and probably 2-channel SACD also), it's decidedly mediocre for regular CDs. And honestly, I suppose that CD playback is the best place to compromise for a $1500 DVD/SACD/CD player like the 9000ES. Even so, it should make a perfectly good transport for CD playback in conjunction with the Monarchy DIP 24/96 and 22C DAC/Pre.

With the Outlaws form-follows-function approach, I also expect that the 950/755 combo should be a big upgrade in terms of analog preamp and amp functionality (over the high dollar receivers and less expensive pre/pros). And I guess it goes without saying that its HT processing will be fine for my 5.1 setup.

soundhound: You've clearly got a preference for tube gear, so I can see why you've got the tube pre in the mix, but do you have any opinions on the quality of the 950 analog pre all by itself? Also, does the aux input on the tube pre (fed by the 950?) somehow bypass the volume control and route directly to the outputs?