Emotiva UMC-1... Still a science-lab affair?

Yesterday I received the Emotiva XDA-1 DAC. It works great and it built very well. I have played all day on a loop from a new 2011 Mach2Music Mac Mini. I got home from work and figured it should burn in a little and sound better than right out of the box. It was fully warmed up. I do not think I am going to keep it. I was going to use it in a second system but the HRT Music Streamer Pro and my spare Music Streamer II+ beat it by a huge margin. I am going to send it back. I thought I could plug it directly to my XA30.5 which run a pair of ultra high efficiency home brew speakers with a pair Fostex 208sigmas and Aurum Cantus 2 GSI tweeters and a pair of 12" Rythmic servo Subs on an open baffle. It is crazy how efficient my home brew speakers are but Emotiva DAC with it volume control could not drive the Pass Labs XA30.5 and speakers like the Music Streamers could using the volume control from the computer. Sonically the Emotiva XDA-1 was very poor compared to other lower priced DACs.

I'd get a decent 2 channel integrated now with a home theater bypass and add the receiver (which will depreciate faster than a banana) later if you really want good 2 channel sound. I started with a receiver based system, and now I hardly ever turn it on, but then I'm not too excited about 5.1 use.

My opinion.

I love Emotiva XPA amps. Amazing value

The UMC 1 is not a wise investment. Buy a used Anthem 30, B&K 50 s2, Krell Showcase, etc the same like money and run HD audio analog out of a oppo blu ray player. The UMC been around along time, and still buggy. Bass management is broken. Pop noises, audio dropouts + more are present too. A Onkyo 866 is under $600 shipped now on audiogon, I would easily recommend going that route over the UMC

Thanks but I cant find any info on this site for a onkyo 866.What is it?

I just received my Emotiva UMC 1 along with the xpa 5 amplifier. I'm running this with a Theta data basic cd transport, Theta DS pro prime II digital signal processor, apple tv and ps3 for the blu ray. My speakers are Vienna acoustics hadyn grands for the front and rears along with the theatro center. My sub is a pair of velodyne dd10's, along with a dls 3750 which is wired directly to the center speaker. Prior to the emotivas arrival, I used a parasound 1205a amp and the sunfire cinema grand IV preamp and this was a great sounding system to me. I'm not saying that the emotiva sounds better, but my friends and I are very impressed. I read as much as I could about emotiva and did what I could to get around the bass management issues which I experienced as soon as the system was up and running. I utilized the UMC 1's equalizer and made sure that all the speakers were flat below 80 hz. The amp has endless power and remains cool compared to the parasound. I've only used this system for several days now, but I'm throwing everything at it that I possibly can. No sound drops, no problems distinguishing sound fields, no problems returning to the correct settings, no problems switching from blu ray ect... Maybe emotiva has made improvements or it's possible that I received a unit that was well built. Movies, music (cd's and apple tv itunes) and hd tv are all great to hear and see. Very easy to spend hours ifo the system. I believe that everyone has a system or sound that is great to that individual. This may not be for some people, but is sure is perfect for me.
thanks audio and music lovers