Emotiva UMC-1 + UPA-7 vs. $1400 receiver

[antheo]

I am looking at going the Emotiva route and would like to know if you tried it.
I read that by the time the Emotiva UMC-1 was released it was kind of outdated by the competition.

[Zman2k2]

I don't think that the OP decided to go this route. I, however, have done this. I went with a UMC-1 and an XPA-5. I really enjoy the combo. The UMC-1 is still working on a few bugs, for example, my HDMI#1 is really wonky on achieving a handshake with other devices, so I don't use it. Others have experienced some center channel drop-outs, but I never have. And the EQ program EmoQ is good, but be prepared to spend some time tweaking it a little for optimum performance.

Am I saying the UMC-1 is bad? Not at all. I really like mine. It is easy to use, as my wife and 7-yr-old daughter can use it no problems. I'm saying that it has some quirks. They are planning on releasing a new firmware soon, 7.00.02.19, and I think new UMC's are already shipping with it. This is supposed to address a lot of the issues that people were still having, as they have stripped down the old firmware, and re-did a bunch of code to fix issues. I'm eagerly awaiting the new firmware, to see the improvements with the EmoQ software.

As for being outdated by the competition, it's true, it's not HDMI1.4 or 1.4a compliant. That never mattered much to me, as I don't plan on going 3D in my house for quite some time, if ever. Other than that, it's got the latest decoders in it, allows you to assign any inputs in any scheme that works for you, and is quite a good sounding processor. You need to decide what's most important, and go from there.