So I finally got a chance to sit down and listen to some music through my UMC-1 last night. I kept saying the same word over and over, "Wow".
I spent about 2 hours listening to many types of music to try to get a broad sampling (David Sanborn, Bob James, Branford Marsalis, Book of Love, Duran Duran, Def Leppard, Ozzy, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Journey). One of the first things I did was listen for noise from the unit itself. Without any music playing I put my ear up to my right front speaker and started cranking up the volume. There was nothing but silence no matter how high I turned up the volume. There was a VERY small humming sound that I could only hear when I had my ear right up against the speaker. I think that might be the amp though as when I turned off the UMC-1 and just had the amp on the hum was still there.
I don't think I ever really understood what people were saying when they described a unit giving them a wider or deeper soundstage, but now I think I do. Before, my system sounded good to me, but it always seemed like the sound was coming from the speakers. Last night, sound seemed to be coming from up near the ceiling, a couple feet from the sides of the speakers, even directly to the right of my seating position in one song. It was amazing. With just about every song, the instruments seemed to be just a couple of feet in front of me. I actually got up and put my ear to my surround speakers just to make sure that I wasn't accidentally in some type of surround mode.
With almost every song, mid-bass had more impact. When listening to Sunrise by Duran Duran, the kick drum hit me like a punch in the chest.
I noticed some sounds in songs that I had never noticed before. In the song Breakdown by Mariah Carey, I don't think I had ever noticed that there are birds chirping in the background. While listening to Michael Jackson's Dangerous, I could hear him snapping his fingers while he was singing. I never noticed that before.
There were a couple of instances where the mids and highs were a bit bright and harsh, but I think that was just the UMC-1 bringing out the details inherent in the recording.
I never would have believed that a pre/pro could make such a noticeable difference if I hadn't heard it with my own ears. I was absolutely stunned. When Emotiva finally comes out with the firmware update that will fix all of the unit's little quirks, I'm sure I will be even happier. But last night really solidified it for me, separates are the way to go.
