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

.......................that I thought I would never buy!

How is this for irony. I was sitting at my computer surfing around and my accountant calls me and says the tax man is going to be kind to me this year. I'm thinking great! 5 minutes later I get a call from Outlaw Audio reminding me that I made some enquiries a long time ago about the new 990 pre-pro they are coming out with. Is this a sign? It must be a sign!

So anyway, the fellow says that they are now pre shipping to people who are on the waiting list. As a result of the enquires I made a long time ago, it would seem I was on the list. So given the call from my accountant and then Outlaw, I just assume that someone wants me to try this pre-pro, so I bought one and Outlaw even agreed to send it to me overnight for next to nothing. Let's hope my wife agrees that it was a sign from someone and I had no choice!

Pictures and a review will come later!

Cool man! Looking forward to it.

Great!! It is based on the Sherwood/Newcastle P-965 that I own. I think you will love it.

I am also interested in the 990 and have been watching the Outlaw boards. I look forward to your observations/ comments.

What sort of an amplifier are you going to use?

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What sort of an amplifier are you going to use?

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Sunfire Cinema Grand.

Ah crap. I just got a call from Outlaw. They don't do over night to Canada for some reason so the 990 is coming ground.

Oh well, it gives me more time to think up what I'm going to tell my wife!

NH, more often i find that getting something shipped from the US is becoming more hassle than it is worth.
Lately some shipments of common research equipment had to be picked up south of the border at a holding company down near Emerson b/c the American companies could not ship such goods to Canada anymore. All the new 'security' rules.
Heaven forbid we get 30-100 gram CO2 cartridges for dart guns. You know how dangerous those can be in taking down a goverment.

The last time i bought some electronic item in the US, the box was opened AND the unit taken apart. Keep your fingers crossed the name "Outlaw" won't be red flagged and brand your new unit as "dangerous, must open".

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i find that getting something shipped from the US is becoming more hassle than it is worth

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I hear ya and I agree. It can be a pain and I did bring it up with Outlaw. They assured me that they have had no problems with cross bording shipping. We will see in about a week what happens.

Might as well continue the hijack... speaking of crossing borders - for the smokers out there, if you're travelling to the US - you can no longer bring a lighter at all (matchbooks are allowed - up to 4 in carry on?) and within Canada, you can't carry a Zippo at all, not even in checked luggage, but you're still allowed a single butane lighter on your person.

I mean, I understand all this hysteria and what it arose from, but... I guarantee I can smuggle a ceramic 4" knife onto a plane, why would I mess around with lighting my seat cushion on fire?

</end rant>

Bren R.

maybe you or someone you know wasnt affected by 9-11 but if you were you would think differently security-no further comment on this subject from me---by the way-i saw the 990 running a system using atlantic technology thx system,the whole set-up was very nice,good luck with it

I think most would agree with the need for security; what makes us see red is the "fighting the last war" mentality that seems to pervade much of the homeland security initiative.

One guy got on a plane with a bomb in his shoe... so for the next nine months airline travel is messed up while we all take our shoes off. C'mon, does anyone really believe that all we're going to get in the future is shoe bombs, not a similar bomb taped to some other part of the body ?

holy crap man i just went to outlaws website to check it out, that thing is a MONSTER. I hope you have a fancy remote control to go with it. This one seems to look more classy than their previous models too, the other ones reminded me of toys for some reason - go figure :\

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I hope you have a fancy remote control to go with it.

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I will be using my trusty MX-700.

Well it's here and it showed up in one piece. I won't get a chance to hook it up until Thursday.

When I get going I will post back and put up some more pictures.

I give you credit for being able to wait, I sometimes end up taking a day off when something new gets to the door. That's stupid, cause it does not help the financial side of things, but that's me - LOL. The Outlaw looks real nice, and that Sunfire is a sweet - powerful amp. Good luck John

Call me stupid then.........when I went back to work today after I got the 990, the first thing I did was book myself out for Thursday afternoon so I could come home and set it up!

Please do post pictures and thoughts! I am interested

How much is that thing?

open the dang box...

Hey, it's Thurs afternoon already. Open open open...
Post post post.

Ok I'm on it right now. Just to give you some idea on scale, that is a HK 630 that is sitting next to it.

Not too purty, is it They never have been known for their looks, though.

I was looking at the specs of the 990. I am amazed a thing that big only weighs 28 lbs.

Me slow brain still needs to learn that receiver power isn't always directly related to weight.

Its not a receiver, its a preamp/processor so it doesn't have all the heavy transformer/power supply wieght of receivers & amps.

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Its not a receiver, it's a preamp/processor so it doesn't have all the heavy transformer/power supply weight of receivers & amps.

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Oops.....my bad. Someone must have spiked my diet Sunkist.

huh, and see I think it looks great.

Well its big enough to be a good sized receiver.

I'm with ringmir. I think it looks pretty good -- especially compared to what they used to look like. At least it doesn't have the green button!

I owned a B&K Ref 30 for a while, and I never understood why people thought that looked good. As usual, there's no accounting for tastes and preferences!

Rich

Speaking only of it's appearance, I don't find it particularly attractive, but neither do I find it particularly ugly. I feel it's a definite improvement on the 950. I don't feel any "WOW" factor, but I could easily live with it.

Though I've not "heard" it in operation, it seems to offer a lot of features at a reasonable price.

I own a Sherwood/Newcastle P-965, which the Outlaw 990 is based, or vice-versa.

The thinking about using that chassis size is that it could also be used as a receiver, thus saving costs on another chassis. In fact, Sherwood/Newcastle does have a receiver version called the R-965 which is th receiver whatfurrer owns.

I actually like the looks of the Outlaw over the Sherwood/Newcastle

And it looks almost identical to the unit on the bottom of Curtis' A/V rack...although the knobs may be larger on the receiver...but that may be an illusion due to the length of the picture though...

Heavy monster though...although I may need some outboard amps to help fill my new room...

WhatFurrer

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.

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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.

It may be "BS" - I agree. I have owned a 3020, 3050, 2200, 2400, 2600, 2700, 1300 pre, 1600 pre/pro etc... etc ... etc (literally about 10 more pieces, at minimum)... heck, I even owned the NAD minitower speakers in the late 80's.

I always LOVED NAD - so the 773 is a pretty compelling piece. Especially since it looks like all the controls are also on the front panel. My kids have remote issues. They LOSE them. I am hoping with the NAD that I could just make them use the receiver's front panel.

Speaking of NAD dealers - the old NAD dealer here was called Dean Smith's House of Records - it was a throwback to the 50's. He passed in 1998 - neat guy.

My friend is on his third preamp since he got his equipment last fall. This is pretty crappy if you ask me. Thousand dollar preamp and he gets two bunk ones in a row. There is no excuse for that.

Riffman- your friend has NAD or Outlaw?

NeverHappy,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the 990, but as a happy NAD (T752) owner, I think many of the things you did not like about the Outlaw you will also find on the NAD. The 990 even looks like an NAD. They are not know as feature rich AVR's, but I'll be interested in your thoughts.

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I think many of the things you did not like about the Outlaw you will also find on the NAD. The 990 even looks like an NAD.

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True enough but at least with NAD I have an idea going in as to what I'm getting. I have been reading up on the 773 over the last few day's and from what I can tell, it is going to address some of my concerns right of the bat. I have also decided to use it's power amps versus my Sunfire just so I get the full meal deal. If it's half as good as the last NAD I had, it will work and I can live without some of the bells and whistles that I never use anyway.

As for the looks, for some reason I don't mind the NAD look. It's at least their look and you know well in advance if your getting a NAD, you know what to expect.

Yes, Riffman, which one was it Outlaw or NAD that your friend had so much trouble with?

never: every time I look at separates, I keep going back to receivers because I think that they have the features that I want.

That new Denon 4806 looks feature rich and it has both DVI and HDMI switching, firmware upgradability. Now if I could find a pair of separates for about the same price with all the features, that would be sweet.

Never: what is the global channel for channel delay? Could you describe what you didn't like about it?

Say your watching a DVD and you find the vocals a little low. So you bump up the center channel to +2 or whatever. That new setting carry's over to every other input. I hate that. With HK and a few others you can have channel levels for each input.

Actually, on the H/Ks I'm not so sure that you can. I was happy to discover that I didn't need to recalibrate on all the channels after I calibrated off the DVD. Of course, my H/K is getting a little long in the tooth (!), being as it is over 2 years old.

My HK allows me to set different channel levels for each digital and analog sound mode. The only problem is that if I want to adjust channels in DTS I have to first play a disc in DTS to get the receiver to switch to it. I can't manually select it. I don't think it saves it for separate inputs, though. Bass management, though, allows for separate settings for each input. I think all receivers and processors should have this feature. Very nice.

Didn't know that you could do that. I guess that my old Kenwood is just old.

Thanks,