This is cool, it's the processor I use (though with the new video board and latest FW). Very happy Amir could review one!
I suspect most anything AVR or HT oriented is going to miss a stand-alone DAC pretty badly for a variety of reasons, like cost and space limitation for shielding and isolation cramming all the processing in the box, and console myself that at my age and with ears of clay it still sounds good enough to me. Plus the knowledge that my speakers, albeit decent, probably still far dominate what I hear. I am upgrading processors soon and am not about to send it to Amir; I want to keep some of my fantasies alive.
Emotiva had a horrible problem with pops and such a couple of years back whenever the processor received a digital "0". Chances are a bias/offset problem in the DAC and analog stages. IIRC they "fixed" it by muting low-level signals; probably couldn't fix the fundamental problem (I'm guessing a circuit issue in the analog chain). I'd bet my latest-and-greatest-updates_FW-and-all version has the same problem. Maybe the new RMC-1/RMC-1L/XMC-2 platform won't have the same issue but I wouldn't bet either way. Their history is good value for amplifiers and some other electronics, maybe speakers (I do not know, never heard them), and pretty much a mess for processors though they have a strong fan base. My XMC-1 had some issues when I first got it (~3 years ago now, I think) that were immediately fixed by FW, was stable for a while (years), then the v3 HDMI board update (about a year later than they said) was a unholy terror that took ~6 months to (mostly) fix. And the early RMC-1 adopters went through hell as beta testers though it sounds like most of the issues are resolved now.
In fairness a lot of the large manufacturers have also had their fair share of issues, but have seemed to work out most of the basic handshaking issues Emotiva has struggled with (perhaps being small and late to the game).
Of course, having Emotiva amplifiers as well, I can be happy in the knowledge that my amps (and speakers) don't have 120+ dB dynamic range (let alone my ears) so can live with the XMC-1. For now.
Onwards - Don