Thanks for the replies! Frankly, I half-expected my post to have disappeared when I checked back tonight. It's great that Outlaw allows frank discussions of their products in their forum.

I especially appreciate Gonk's reply. I didn't know the Emotiva is based on a Sunfire platform. This is not good news, as I've never been particularly impressed with the Carver products I've heard and I think Sunfire is/was one of his products (?)

The bottom line for me is that the 1070 sounds really, really good to my ears and I'm afraid anything else I try won't measure up. Yet it drives me nuts with dropping the audio and freeze-ups. I sometimes have to unplug it from the wall socket for half an hour to get it going again.

I'm undecided what to do. One option would be to rebuild my entertainment center so I'd have room for Outlaw's separates. Their current specials are enticing. But my entertainment center is a built-in and I'm afraid it'd cost like $1000 to have it rebuilt. but maybe it would be worth it.