Yeah as much as I know about the differences between what you get from a stand-alone AV pre/pro vs using an AV receiver as the pre/pro -mated with outboard amplification - I would much rather opt NOT to have do deal with faulty product with glitches, personally. In fact, I can't imagine most would agree with me on this stance.
While you traditionally haven't gotten the dynamics, power, channel separation, and refinement from using AV receivers vs separates based systems,the difference in what you'll get using a good quality, fully featured AV receiver as you're pre/pro, mated to outboard amps, is not going to be so great, really.
I think using some HK, Yamaha, Denon, or Pioneer as your pre would still likely give you pretty nice results for your application, even using the pass through feature to some used 2 channel stereo pre for 2 channel dubties, if you must.
Basically, I don't think I'm going to opt fot the UMC-1 in it's pressent state. Like others said, maybe the XMC-1 will be better. If it is much improved ergonomics and functionality, I'll probably jump on it as well. Otherwise, I'm quite affraid of the UMC-1 issues.
While you traditionally haven't gotten the dynamics, power, channel separation, and refinement from using AV receivers vs separates based systems,the difference in what you'll get using a good quality, fully featured AV receiver as you're pre/pro, mated to outboard amps, is not going to be so great, really.
I think using some HK, Yamaha, Denon, or Pioneer as your pre would still likely give you pretty nice results for your application, even using the pass through feature to some used 2 channel stereo pre for 2 channel dubties, if you must.
Basically, I don't think I'm going to opt fot the UMC-1 in it's pressent state. Like others said, maybe the XMC-1 will be better. If it is much improved ergonomics and functionality, I'll probably jump on it as well. Otherwise, I'm quite affraid of the UMC-1 issues.