Phil, Nad and Rotel have been building amps for a very long time. they have many years of R&D. I own a Nad processor and love it, i did think about getting an outlaw when i bought my Nad, kind of similar situation you are in, the Nad was 1500$, and i think the outlaw processor was 900$ish? i demoed the Nad, and could tell a difference between the Nad and what i currently had at the time, so i was happy with the 1500$ that it cost. the shop also had Nad amps, and they sounded good, and were solidly built. In my opinion, Nad is where the law of deminishing returns starts to come into affect. With a Nad product you will get maximum performance for your dollar, if you go to some of the higher priced companies, you are not really getting a lot more performance, for the lot more money you are spending.
I would tell you to find a retailer in your area that sells Nad and Rotel, listen to their amps if you dont think they are worth the money right there. then buy the outlaw, they have the 30 return policy also right? if you receive the outlaw and YOU are happy with it, then keep it.
One thing you can try to do on your own Phil, is try to find out, how many transistors each amp has per channel, the more transistors the amp has the better it will hold up under a large load. If you can find out what kind of transistor each manufacture is using, you can find out more about the characteristics of the amp..
the power supply and transistors are at the heart of all solid state amps, some companies use overly built products, while others use products that will just do what they want.
I hope this helps you some, Alex
