A late follow through to this thread. I did unfortunately abandon the sphinx primarily because of the noise issue, I feel it is an otherwise competent unit but that level of noise was simply unacceptable, a sub $1000 NAD unit by comparison was practically silent. The sphinx comes in V.2 now and is described as having a lower noise floor, I wonder if this is a remedy to the hum/hiss of the original. I'd recommend the sphinx still but if an asymmetric hum/hiss concern you from speakers then I would check the level on the original version carefully.