My UMC-1 works fine

After waiting all day yesterday for my UMC-1 to be delivered by Fed-Ex only to check the tracking number at 4 pm and discovering that the Fed-Ex contractor (we live in a rural area) blew off my delivery and took it back to the terminal, I called and blasted Fed-Ex for hiring out their responsibilities to irresponsible people and set out to drive to Sacramento to pick it up myself.

This morning I took apart every component interconnect and used the opportunity of inserting the UMC-1 into the system to also check each and every cable, speaker wire, banana plug, amp connection, and power cables. It wasn't pretty back there.

Then I set aside a few hours to hook everything up, run the setup for sources, do the EmoQ and see where I ended up. Here's what's hooked up:

UMC-1
Optoma HD73 Projector
Carada 120" Screen
B&K 4430 3x200 (Fronts)
B&K ST1400 2x 105(Rears/Sides)
Emo UPA-2 2x125 (Rears)
Rythmic F12 Sub
Audiosource AMP 100 (Zone 2)
Oppo BDP-83 BD
Toshiba HD-A20 HD-DVD
Adcom GCD-700 CD
Dish VIP622
Energy Pro 22 RefConns for Stereo
Energy RC-LCRs Across the Front for HT
Emo ERD-1s sides and rear
Eight Impedance matching volume controls for Zone 2
Seven sets of various make ceiling speakers
One set of HTD Outdoor Speakers

I removed a Rotel RSP-1066 processor and had already replaced a Rotel RDV-1040 DVD player with the OPPO.

Long story short, I was done in about an hour. Ran the setup on the UMC-1, did the EmoQ and that was it. Everything works, there are no snaps, crackles or pops. The UMC-1 does HDMI handshakes cleanly and reliably. I have no problems with the DISH receiver in either Live or Playback mode. I've played BDs, SACDs, CDs, DISH stuff and not even a hiccup. In particular, the 7.1 track of The Golden Compass, while always sounding great, came up a knotch or two with the UMC-1.

As for how it handles signals, both audio and video are a significant improvement over the previous setup. To be fair to the Rotel, I had previously run the video signal from the OPPO and Toshiba directly to the Optoma. I was tempted to do the same and bypass the UMC-1 for video, but had I done so, I would not have appreciated the significant improvement in color. Blacker blacks and skin tones are very impressive. I asked my wife to check out the new setup and she immediately ran the latest episode of Project Runway which we had recorded. The first thing she said was, "Wow, I've never seen Heidi Klum look so natural".

As for audio, this system has never sounded better. Everything is balanced and the sub was tweaked by the EmoQ thing better than I had ever managed with the Radio Shack SPL meter and my ear alone.

I ordered the UMC-1 knowing that the new FW was not out yet. At this point, I will likely wait to update until I see a specific need for it.

Happy camper here. It was well worth the wait and given that my last SS processor cost more that 2X the cost of the UMC-1 and the "replacement" Rotel would be near 3x the cost of the UMC-1, this is a real bargain.