Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater New toy.....(Outlaw 990)

It's ironic you say that, I know we buy these things for sound, but I also look at looks!! I have never liked the outlaw "looks" the amps in paticular have that "stamped" thin looking metal cabinet. Just a CHEAP overall look. And that front panel? power button? not for me, looks that is. I thought that 990 looked great. I think it's a real good looking unit, unlike there others. nice lines, a quality look, from the pic at least. Similar in size and weight to my Sunfire grand theater III. Although the Sunfire is 4 lbs less @24 lbs. I have the 19" version to match my amps, http://www.sunfire.com/theatergrandIII.htm#featured

let me tell you, from first hand experience, whatfurrer's Sherwood unit is MONSTER heavy. its a ginormous receiver, with good looks to boot. i didnt get to do much critical listening, but i would be willing to bet it can hold its own.

bigjohn

I have spent a few day's with the 990 and it's not to bad. The video up-conversion is the second best I have seen. The first being the HK 7300 but the 990 is close.....real close.

It's performance with DD and DTS is exceptional. It does what it's supposed to do very well. One very big gripe I have however with the 990 is that it doesn't seem to hold channel levels for each input. If it does, I haven't figured out yet how to make it do it. I hate having a global setting for the channel level. I like to tweak the center channel a bit when I'm watching TV and I usually run it at 0 when watching a DVD. With the 990 it seems that one setting is for all inputs.......I hate that with a passion.

I will post more on the 990 later as I spend more time with it.

Oh yeah, for those that have been debating it's looks, to be honest, I think it's butt ugly!

if it is like the P-965, it is global channel level settings, but there are two presets. It is also one feature I wish was different.

I have a macro on my MX-700 to swap between presets.

In case anyone is keeping score, I sent the Outlaw back. After spending a fair bit of time with it, I thought that for the money it could have been better. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad but given what is out there at this price point, I was expecting more.

Next up is a NAD T-773. It's on route as I type this.

Looking forward to this - I would like a simple solution for the regular family room - separates just seem like too much work for the kids, so I am interested in your take on NAD. I used to LOVE NAD back in the 70's and 80's - but have heard the quality is not what it was.

Never: I have been considering the Outlaw separates, so, I would be most interested in ALL the reasons that you sent it back.

One of its features that caught my eye is the DVI switching feature. It is one of the few separates that has DVI switching right now. Of course, with all the debate on DVI/ HDMI, I'm not sure how much difference it would actually mean to me.

I saw somewhere that someone was talking about some new Rotel separates that are supposed to be introduced this month. Anyone have a link or two?

you know, neverhappy, your the second person to send an outlaw product back, that i have seen on the board.. i dont own any outlaw products, but seeing this trend is making me think that i probably wont be buying anything from them peroid..

Like I said there really wasn't anything wrong with it......but I'm fussy and well.......... I'm NeverHappy! It did very well with movies in terms of separation etc but in some other areas to me at least it didn't fair very well. A few key points that made me send it back are:

- Channel adjust levels on the fly are a pain to get at.
- Global setting for channel delay was a mistake.
- Front display was way to small and almost useless.
- 7.1 Audio output has to be assigned with a video output?
- On screen doesn't work with progressive scan.
- Second sub out has no trim control
- I didn't use it but if you run DVI, you can't see anything on screen and the set-up menu won't show up in the 990's window. Actually very little information gets displayed.
- Not a big deal but I really thought it was butt ugly!
- The remote was cheap but again not a deal breaker.

The big one for me was the way it handles the LFE channel. I just didn't like it at all. With my HSU set-up with a SPL I could barely hear the sub at all when listening to music but as soon as I put in a DVD, I either had way too much or not enough. I have owned a whack of stuff in my day and I have never had this happen. The sub with almost the same settings through my HK was wonderful. If you ask me and again this is only my 2 cents, there is something wrong with the way they have something internally configured. As I'm a bass nut, there was no way I could live with this. About a half day later I came across a good deal on the NAD T-773 and thought why not try it out. It has been on my hit list forever to try so I figured now would be the time. I also paid less for the T-773 then I paid for the 990.

Let me say it again, this is not me beating up on Outlaw. It's my 2 cents only. For $1100.00 I expected better then what I got. That is it, that is all. There are people out there who love this thing so it can't be all bad. Like I have said a few times already, I'm just fussy.

In reply to:

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but have heard the quality is not what it was.

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To be honest I think this is complete BS. I know a lot of people say NAD has QC issues but I have known the NAD dealer in town for here for almost 10 years and he hardly ever gets anything back.

I have owned a few NAD items the last one being a 751 or maybe it was a 752 anyway I have yet to encounter a problem with any of them. I know 2 people off the top of my head that are die hard NAD people that swear by them. I think this is a case where they may have had a few problems and it got blown out of proportion and people just won't let it go.

To be honest I think I see more people complaining about Denon stuff then I do NAD, but when it's NAD it seems to "stick" longer.