I have an Emotiva UMC-1 processor with the 50% discount towards an upgrade.

My concern with it is quality. When I first got it, there was something loose inside, rattling. I called them and they told me not to worry.

Then, a couple of years ago, the 12VDC trigger output failed. My daughter smelled smoke. I had it running a Parasound SCAMP, so the current was minimal.

I got it setup doing little... I have an outboard 7.1 DAC hooked up to the HTPC and that drives the UMC-1. For fun, I also output a digital bitstream to the UMC, so I can choose which one. I have the HDMI outputs from the TV into it as well ( this includes the loopback from the Direct TV signal), so I can drive the TV into the audio if I want.

Honestly, I'm done with the revolving formats in video. I no longer care, after all, it's just for watching movies and TV. It's like, Get Smart, Monty Python, Hogan's Heroes were all done in mono; Mel Brooks don't need no surround and TFOTR does fine with Dolby 7.1.

(Note: I do have a pretty good 7.0 audio system with the TV. For most people, this would be considered High End).

Where I get serious is in the real stereo... darn good cartridge, Scottish turntable, vacuum tubes, Class A FETs, even a "digital tape recorder" made from an M-Audio Firewire and a laptop hard wired to the home LAN. Choice of English monitors or American planar speakers. In there, I'm looking at an RME Babyface Pro.

I suppose I ought to have a tech look at the UMC-1 trigger circuit.

I invite you to become more familiar with Emotiva and their upgrade paths. If you are concerned about throwing money away due to changing standards, Emotiva should be your FIRST choice.

Their previous pre-pro XMC-1 was made before Atmos or DTSX were commonplace in the home market. It can now be upgraded to include these new formats, negating the necessity of 7.1 analog inputs. They have also updated their HDMI in/outs for new HDMI standards that did not exist when the XMC-1 was originally released. Their pre-pros ARE basically HTPCs running a custom Lynux with high-end audio components and fully balanced audio paths.

Take a look at the back panel of the RMC-1. You should be able to see the expansion bays. This leaves room for future upgrades and customization. Want 6 independently controlled subwoofers? Not sure why you would want that, but you can add them. A new audio format comes out with even more channels? There's room for a total of 24 balanced outputs. Each board comes with the necessary processing and A/D conversion for those channels. You tell the the RMC-1 how you want these new channels to be used and that's what it does. If new surround format comes out, it can be downloaded to the RMC-1 like Atmos/DTSX was downloaded to the XMC-1.

The future, honestly, is building an HTPC machine and add a bunch of RME audio interfaces, with lots of RAM and perhaps even a good video card with upconversion and HDMI output. If you want, then buy a simple decoder or just get the software to do the decoding. Get something that will do reasonable 7.1 processing.

Besides, an HTPC with an i5 has sufficient horsepower to upconvert to 4K. You may not even need a video card if you buy a reasonable motherboard. ASUS makes some awesome stuff at a fraction of the cost of a dedicated processor.

As the standards change, update the PCIe boards.

All of these new surround systems are a distraction, IMHO. Sorry, but buying something like this is throwing money away. The standards keep changing and today's expensive processor is tomorrow's boat anchor. This is because they are not upgradeable and the hardware keeps changing.

Just take a look at Audiogon or hifishark to see where these things end up. No one wants them.

I'd love to see a company use FPGA DACs, and convert to DSD after processing and before analog conversion. This could be the next big step in audio quality, IMO.