Yeah, I think you'll want to keep HDMI from your PS3. Optical from the cable box is perfectly fine. But the PS3 can play Blu-rays with TrueHD, DTS-HD or LPCM audio. You need the HDMI connection for all of those HD Audio lossless formats. So I'd keep the HDMI connection for the PS3 at least
"Break in" is one of those crazy audio things that some people swear by, some people scoff at, and no one seems to really be able to "prove" either way for certain. My own experience, I try to do a lot of blind listening. Including listening that's meant to "trick" me by literally playing the same speaker no matter what, or playing the same speaker but switching out only the speaker wire, or doing it straight and actually switching speakers
I haven't had a lot of opportunity to have "Speaker A" be a brand new speaker and then "Speaker B" be the exact same model, but "broken in" for many hours. But I HAVE tried that exact scenario a couple of times. My experience there was that one time, I completely couldn't tell the speakers apart. The other time, I was actually able to tell them apart pretty well, but only for about the first 3 or 4 minutes. After that, they sounded identical.
So personally, I don't really buy into the whole "break in" thing. It makes sense to me that when a speaker is literally right out of the box, the drivers ARE moving parts, so they might loosen up a bit when they first start moving. I actually think it might have more to do with temperature though. Literally "warming up" the moving parts of the speaker after they've been shipped across the cold, Canadian provinces to me
But yeah, I tend to agree with Tom Andry and the rest of the editors here at Audioholics that what really "breaks in" are your ears and your brain
You get used to the new sound, and you start to notice things in recordings that were either masked by not-so-great speakers in the past, or you just start to pick out sounds that you weren't really paying attention to before.
It's actually a large part of what I'm talking about when I reference getting speakers that allow you to learn how to listen critically. When you get some very accurate, very neutral, very low distortion speakers that have good transient response and delineation between notes, you start to be able to listen "past" the main melody or dialogue and "tune in" to quieter and more subtle background sounds and harmonies. Those things were always there, but lesser speakers will mask them or fail to reproduce them accurately. In real life, we "tune out" and "tune in" sounds all the time. Like how we can carry on a conversation in a busy restaurant. Accurate, distortion free speakers allow us to train our brains to do the same thing when listening to music or movies.
So it's perfectly natural for it to seem like the speakers keep getting better when they're new. You're actually learning how to listen more critically, and how to "tune in" and "tune out" sounds at will. It's a lot like when you get a new car and you listen to the engine noises. At first, it's just a cacophany. But after a bit of time, you learn how to pick out certain, specific sounds that let you know how the engine is performing. The sounds of the engine never really changed. But your ability to "tune" your hearing to those specific sounds did! Personally, I think that's more along the lines of what happens when we get new speakers. I DO think some amount of physical "break in" makes perfect sense. But I don't really believe it lasts more than a few minutes - maybe a few hours at the most. Our brains adjusting to the new sound though? I totally believe in that. I've experienced that enough times in situations other than those involving speakers to know that the sound around me itself can stay the same, but my ability to "tune" my hearing to pick out certain specific sounds definitely changes and improves over time
As for what I wanted to write last night: you are NEVER going to regret having that XPA-5 amp! Amps are pretty much always a good purchase
The UMC-1 is something that you might replace one day though. Pre-pros and receivers keep adding new features, inputs and formats, and the UMC-1 does have a few known issues and isn't quite so cutting edge in terms of all the latest formats and such. Personally, I think the best option these days is to just use an A/V Receiver as your pre-pro. So long as you get one with pre-outs, you can still hook it up to that lovely XPA-5 amp and get great power and more available headroom and Watts for your speakers! Plus, if you ever decide to expand to 9 or 11 channels one day, it's so much easier to use the built-in amps in the receiver to handle the less important "height" channels, while still powering your primary front and surround speakers with the external amp.
I don't know if the XMC-1 will turn out to be great or a bit of a dud. Making pre-pros and receivers is really hard. And it's extra hard for a smaller company like Emotiva. They've faced many, many delays on all of their pre-pros now, and that just means they fall that much further behind in terms of cutting edge features. So I'd opt for a great Denon, Marantz or Onkyo A/V Receiver myself. You'll get the most cutting edge features that way, likely more inputs, certainly more network and internet support. And you'll get Audyssey room correction and EQ, which I still find to be the best of the room correction suites. When you're looking in that $1000 price range for the XMC-1 (including the discount that you have in hand), it gets really tough to say the XMC-1 is a better choice as the "hub" of your system than a great A/V Receiver like the Onkyo TX-NR818.
Anywho, that's all stuff you don't need to worry about until the future!
For right now, you've got a kick arse sound system that didn't break the bank and performs way above its price point! That's huge value, and it's going to last you a long, long time. So if the UMC-1 gets moved to another room at some point, and you go with a higher-end A/V Receiver in the main theater setup, there's no downside and no "waste" at all.
Oh, and don't forget to always check
monoprice.com before you buy cables or wires anywhere else! Monoprice is the one exception to the "looks too good to be true" rule. They really are that cheap. The products really are perfectly good and high quality. And there's no reason to pay more for cables and wires and other accessories
