I'm a 950 owner and have been for quite some time. It's certainly the best-sounding such piece of equipment I've used, and it continues to offer what I think is an excellent value. There are other pre/pros on the market that offer more features and can comfortably match its sonic performance, but they also cost more money - and some of them offer what I consider a more difficult interface. I'll offer an example: a co-worker (the VP of our small consulting engineering firm) decided to replace his Spectral two-channel pre-amp and amp with a surround system and elected to stay with the same dealer he'd used for many years. As a result, he ended up with a Rotel RSP-1068 and a Rotel five-channel amp. The package cost him about as much as a 950/755 combo would have after he traded in the Spectral gear (at a trade value that could have paid for a 950). The dealer is one of the best in town, but because he didn't pay for an installer to come out and set it up he received no support. I became his tech support, including a Sunday afternoon at his house tinkering with it. It was sort of fun to play with the Rotel and B&W combo he had, but afterward my wife and I both felt that our 950/750/Paradigm Reference system (at the time using a Panasonic DVD player as CD transport, although I now have a Yamaha DVD-S1500 in that role) sounded nicer and less harsh than his Meridian CD player/Rotel/B&W system. (Personal taste varies of course, especially when it comes to speakers, so YMMV.) On top of that, the interface and documentation on the Rotel were atrocious, especially when handed over to someone with no background in setting up a home theater system - Outlaw's documentation is much clearer and easier to use. Also, the free advise available here in the Saloon along with the free tech support that the Outlaws offer really can be a huge benefit for someone learning their way around a home theater system. The 950 was never meant to be the end-all surround sound processor - if that is the goal, there are some very good candidates available, but the price tags reflect the differences between them and the 950. The 950 was meant to be a good quality unit at a great price, and I still think it does a great job of that. Particularly for people who are new to home theater, the 950's interface, documentation, manufacturer tech support, and this forum also factor into the equation in the 950's favor.

testtone - I remember seeing that thread a while back. Brian's a very knowledgeable guy, and I think many of the benchmark standards he and others at Secrets have developed for both DVD players and surround sound processors are extremely valuable tools that manufacturers would do well to look closely at (including Outlaw in the development of future surround sound processors). I do wonder a bit about his comments regarding the 950, though. The 950 does have a few quirks (the slow digital audio signal lock has often been commented on, and the speaker distance settings for all four surrounds do share a common setting), but I've awlays been extremely happy with the digital input assignment method it employs and even when I did have an asymetrical surround speaker layout I found the time alignment worked fine for me.

I'm very excited to see what sorts of refinements and advances appear in the 950's eventual successor - additional surround modes like Pro Logic IIx, more extensive video switching, and so on - but I'm not yet ready to tell anyone who is interested in the 950 to sit on the sidelines and wait for it to arrive. The 1070 is still a few months off, and while I feel certain work has already begun on a 950 replacement I also don't expect to see that replacement start shipping for a year or more. A year of waiting would be infinitely more pleasant with a 950 to keep you company.