HT pre-amp/proccessor advise.

Have you considered the Outlaw 990? It has received nice professional reviews, and according to the threads on the Outlaw forums, it has sonic improvements over the 950 as well as more/newer features. I just ordered the Sherwood P-965, upon which the Outlaw 990 is closely based. Both products are within your price range.

I chose the Sherwood P-965 over the Outlaw 990 for a few reasons:

1. The Sherwood has a room EQ feature called "SNAP" that EQ's the entire audible range, including subwoofer response. The Outlaw 990 currently has no room EQ. I may not use that feature, but I want it there just in case.

2. I don't need balanced outputs because my interconnect distances are short, they sound fine as they are, and my amplifiers don't have balanced inputs. My sub is passive, so it has speaker cable going to it, not an interconnect.

3. I don't plan to use the pre-pro for video switching, so DVI doesn't matter to me.

4. I got the Sherwood, new with warranty, for slightly less than the Outlaw. You can do a search on this site and find the listing if it is still posted.

Two days after I ordered the Sherwood, Outlaw announced their new Model 970 pre-pro for $699, which is basically their Model 1070 receiver minus the amplifier. When the 1070 was released 2 months ago, some of the comments indicated that the 990 sounded better for 2 channel music than the 1070 used as a preamp. I assume the 990 will sound better than the 970 as well. I assume (and hope) that the Sherwood will sound the same as the Outlaw 990.