This is a review and detailed measurements of the Emotiva XMC-1 Generation 2 Home Theater Processor. It is on kind loan from a member and that is looking to upgrade it to the XMC-2 (they apparently have an attractive trade up program). The XMC-1 came out in 2015 I think. Not sure when the Gen 2 version came out. The XMC-1 costs US $2,499 so not cheap.I like the display on the XMC-1 as far as the wealth of information it shows:Otherwise the look and feel is ordinary.The menu system drove me crazy. Every button press takes 2 seconds or more to take hold. I don't know how such a slower processor would have passed any kind of review in a high-end processor.The back panel shows excellent connectivity in the form of both XLR Output and (one) analog input:Routing my PC desktop through it resulted in UHD resolution but at just 30 Hz. Older HDMI chipset takes the blame.To test, I connected my cables to far right connectors marked "R" and "L." Could not get any output from them or the RCA jacks above them. Tried everything. Reset to factory, etc. Nothing worked. I then just moved the cable until I got a signal. Only then did read the fine print that the connectors on the right are for subwoofer Right and Left! Sometimes it is hell being a reviewer!Here is our usual dashboard using HDMI In and XLR out:We have an accurate and proper 4 volt output at 0 dB volume. I think this is the first AVR or processor to get this right. Note that the test mode is Reference Stereo which is supposed to turn off all processing including bass management. SINAD performance is good for an AVR/Processor:But not compared to any decent desktop DAC:We have yet to have enough escape velocity in any home theater product to break into our green bucket let alone blue.Here is the jitter performance over HDMI:It looks reasonably clean. Noise floor is high though and is hiding jitter components. Fortunately the levels are well below audibility.From here on, I had to switch to using Coax input. For some reason, using ASIO interface with my graphics card would result in 7.1 output instead of stereo. And the XMC-1 would proceed to perform some processing on that. Fortunately, coax performance is essentially identical to HDMI so results should hold for both inputs:Notice how we are missing the spec by fair bit in channel 1. Channel 2 is better but still shy of the specification. The differential in channel performance tells me poor routing of signals or power to the DAC.Dynamic range was not that great for a processor at this price:We are barely clearing 16 bits.Here is our intermodulation distortion+noise relative to level:I am showing both output types (XLR and RCA) for those of you interested in RCA measurements. XLR is just a bit quieter but otherwise the same.THD+N versus frequency is nothing to write home about:The red line is a $99 DAC board.Frequency response is flat as we would expect:I know. I know. You are wondering why the decapitated tiger is adorning the XMC-1 in the review picture. This is why:I think this is the most broken linearity test we have seen! The output is muted for any signal below -90 dB! I thought something was broken when the test started from -120 dB with no output from the unit. Then all of a sudden it output the -90 dB signal. To show that clearly, see these graphs:How the heck did you break this Emotiva? It is not like the output gets inaccurate. There is just no output below -90 dB. Once in a while it would do something as indicated by the partial sine wave but otherwise nothing.I took advantage of the nice XLR input to run some analog pre-amp tests. Here is the pass-through performance at the same level in/out:Hmmm. This is worse than the DAC performance.Here is the frequency response both in Reference Stereo and Direct (which allows DSP):We see that Direct mode puts the ADC in the loop causing a sharp cut off in bandwidth to tune of 22 kHz. Here is the performance in both mode versus level:Performance without ADC is good but with ADC, it does down the drain although it still beats the much more expensive NAD M17 Processor I recently reviewed Crosstalk was good, beating the NAD M17 there too:I had high hopes for Emotiva XMC-1 seeing how it is one of few home theater products with specifications. Alas, I was not able to meet those specs even though the measurements it did produce, put it high in the home theater department.The worst failing was the linearity test showing that there is some serious signal processing error inside this unit, muting the output below -90 dB. Was this put in there to improve specs? Or downright bug and lack of testing to find the same?Even without that problem, we still can't match performance of a $99 desktop DAC even though we paid $2,500. Yes, we got more channels than 2 and have room EQ but still, I want my good performance damn it!The XMC-2 has no specifications but I have read that they plan to release Audio Precision test results. Let's keep our fingers crossed that they deliver there.------------As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.Driving up and down another $200 miles to pick up more home theater gear on Thursday. Need gas and insurance money folks. So