On Sept. 4th I posted comments on this review page concerning the ACT-3 processor. The comments were made in anger and not out of any actual experience with the ACT-3. I haven't heard the piece and have no idea if it hums or not. Please disregard said comments and judge the ACT-3 for yourself.

It has been two months since I brought my ACT-3 home. As far as hum/hiss noise, I do detect an extremely low level hiss noise coming out from the unit by putting my ear an inch or two away from the unit. I have always plugged the ACT-3 into the Panamax 1000+ line conditioner and the hiss noise could have been suppressed to an almost undetectable level, perhaps. Try to plug your ACT-3 into a line condtioner for those of you who have this problem, may I suggest. There is another bug that I found in the unit is that whenever I change my two channel (stereo mode) setting, I have to go back, re-set and re-save the left surround setting in Dolby Digital or AC3 mode (it was reset to 0db). Mondial has akcnowledged this bug when I talked to their tech support about it. In general, I am very happy with the unit overall performaces from two channel music to 5.1 or DTS/AC3 sound reproduction. For the money, it is still the best buy in its price range in comparison to the other pre/pro's in my humble opinion. Here is the rest of my h/t set-up:ACt-3 pre/pro.
Denon POA-8200/POA-8300 THX cert. Power Amp.
Denon 1015 CD player
Pioneer DVL-909 LD/DVD Combi.
Panasonic A300 DVD
NHT VT-2 front l/r spkrs, bi-amped by a NHT SW3 Monoamp.
NHT VS-2 Ctr Spkr
NHT HDP-2 Dipole l/r surround spkrs
Energy ES-12 subwoofer
Sony KP-53v75 rear projection TV with component video inputs
Monster Z series spkr cables.
A mixture of Kimber and Monster interconnect cables.
Panamax 1000+ line conditioner
Energy ES-12 Subwoofer

OK, so initially the Act 3 wasn't perfect. It was still one of the most anticipated components to come along in years. I work in the industry, and have come into contact with many fine surround processor/preamps in all different price ranges. The Act 3, despite the early noise problems, still ranks as one of the best values there is. Mondial is to be
comended.

The first unit I heard did have some problems. In addition to being noisy, it had very little gain. After a modification to replace the DSP and digital
input boards, the unit became dead quiet and much more dynamic. All in all, a pleasure to listen to.
My primary concern was its ability to handle DTS from
DVD's. It does. Yes, there are some demo DTS DVD's around, and the Act 3 delivers outstanding sound from
them... provided you have a DVD player capable of passing the bitstream. In Dolby Digital, performance was also quite good. I feel that DTS is a superior system, but there's room in the marketplace for both.

To dismiss the Act 3 based solely on early samples is not doing the unit justice. Mondial has gone out of its way to correct the problems with this preamp, and it must be heard to be believed. I'm also in full agreement with Mondial's decision not to put on screen graphics into the Act 3. The addition of a character generator would only degrade the picture
quality, even when no characters are being generated.
For the sake of visual purity, I support that idea.

To sum up, the Act 3 has matured into a very fine
preamp/processor that is easy to use and does a credible job regardless of the mode being used. While
the early samples had problems, these have been ironed out. I recommend this product 100%.

acurus has made a change in the ACT 3 that eliminates the hum problem. My ACT 3 came from the factory with the upgrade; my dealers demo unit was the old version, acurus shipped them a replacement board for it. the audio quality of the new version is fabulous, my non-audiophile wife has commented on the sound improvement over my old pre-amp. if you have an old version, hound your dealer and/or Acurus for the new board.

I have perhaps a simple solution to the problems mentioned here. As I am excited to audition the ACT III, I have been watching these reviews for advice. Hopefully all that is wrong with the systems mentioned here is a "ground loop hum." When I purchased my theater there was a hum which was produced by something described as a ground loop. My dealer explaned that this somehow comes along with the cable signal and must be removed. They sold me a $10 device from Radio Shack which works great. This is placed inline between the cable out of the wall and the VCR. Go to Radio Shack and ask for a "Cable/VCR, Ground Breaker, Feed-Thru, Surge Protector." This is what is written on the side of my unit. It looks much like a 6" legnth of coax cable. If this is a fix please address it here as I am in the market for a new Pre/Pro. Thanks!

I am still working on the full write up but from what we heard... or didn't hear. ACT III: 0! Mondials willing ness to try to help: 3. Actuall actions taken buy Mondial:0. Average score

I am a big Mondial fan and I have an Acurus A250 + an Aragon 8008bb Amplifier.I have been waiting for the ACT III for half year now and I can say that Im not going to get it. I listened once to the unit for a brief moment and it sounded ok but those who have taken one home seem to be vert upset. Mondial failed big time here because not only have they been bullshitn us around for a very long time but they also increased the price of this unit which puts it in the price range of many other processors which makes the ACT III less atractive. There should be no excuses for a humming buzz sound from any unit that says its a high end audio unit period ! Not only did you wait so long for the ACT III on top of that the price increased and you get a hum from your speaker. I had the same problem with the Acurus A250 and I needed to buy a filter which is connected to my cable box to remove 95% of the hum ( still a slight hum which is not so noticable) , The Aragon works better in this area where it is very quiet. In todays Market a 20 bit converter is already history, 24bit is standard ( Sony ES is releasing a 32bit soon for the same price) Not only did you wait so long for the ACT III but by the time it came out the technology it uses is already old. Mondial makes GREAT amplifiers but they need to work on there processors and they need to work on the HUM everyones been talking about ( including there amps). I still love the company because they make GREAT products for half the price of other HI-END makers.I heard Aragon is coming out with a processor and I hope it will be as good as the Amplifiers. Considering the fact that you can get 24bit or higher level processors without the hum to it I must say that the ACT-III seems like a failure to me.