I apologize, but this will be all stream of conscience because I am at work and can't spend a ton of time on this right now. If you have questions, feel free to post them here and I will try to answer them. So I was one of the lucky three to bring a 990 home. I have it hooked to a 770 which I bought at the same time as well. I said I wasn't going to hook it up last night... Yeah we all know how long that lasted. I have it 90% done, I have some tweaking to do with my SACD player, but beyond that it is hooked up as a 5.1 system (room is too small for 7.1, but I am moving soon). My first impression is wow. I really like the sound from the unit. It is completly quite, putting my NAD T763 to shame. And the 990 doesn't have a hum. My only dislike so far is the navigation on the menu. But that is also a product of not having the manual yet. I think if I had it, it would be easier to locate the items I want to use. I have to do an auto setup tonight, I didn't do it last night because my neighbors would kill me. I like that the micropohone they give you has a tripod screw so I can really set it up at the right height. It's ability to make my HD cable box sound good is what really struck me. There has always been a bit of a hiss from it, whether with my NAD or my friends Denon. It sounds great. My only other issue is where to store the boxes in a NYC apartment.

Shawn

Congratulations on being one of the first three! I'm on the waiting list and I'm anxiously awaiting the email telling me it's ready.

Did they tell you when a manual would be ready?

Also, if you get a chance, I would be extremely grateful if you would be willing to measure the actual height of the unit. Another thread here said it was nearly 8", and the spec. listed on the site here says it's 7.75". Well, as it turns out, I have a bit more than 7.75" but a bit less than 8" of room for it in my stand, and I'd really like to know if it will fit before I commit to purchase it.

I suppose I could try to find a way to make room if I have to, but I'd prefer not to. I wonder if the feet can be removed and replaced with lower profile feet?

Thanks for any info.

Mark

I am one of the other lucky winners of the right to walk off with a 990 at the end of the HES. I was very happy to read SFOX's first impressions. The Outlaw demo was one of the best home cinema demo of the entire show and put to shame many systems that were way more expensive.

Being from Quebec,buying Outlaw always meant paying brokerage fees on top of shipping expenses and custom fees. Temporarily posted in New York, I wanted to buy the 950, have it delivered to my office and bring it back with me upon my return to Québec City. I had my credit card out when I visited the Outlaw site last Thursday to make my purchase only to discover the 950 was no longer available and that I had to put my name on the waiting list. Not having the luxury to wait for the 990 before my return to Québec, winning the purchase rights for one of the three HES demos was truly lucky. Especially since one of my remaining options was the T 163... I'll post my first impressions in about a month from now.

The manual will be sent to us by e-mail. It has gone through the revision process so, if Outlaw's printer knows his business, it should be ready within the next two weeks. I can't give you the exact height of the 990, the unit is still it its box. From what I remember, the feet seem to have a low profile, sorry.

By the way, the soon to be released integrated amp gave me a excellent impression.

Ah, excellent - feedback en route from two of the three lucky buyers! Looking forward to hearing from you guys. Thanks for keeping us in the loop.

Many attendees of the show seem to have felt that the 990 setup was the best sounding home theater offering there - including Tom Norton of UltimateAV .

Can't disagree with Tom Norton about Outlaw's performance at HES. They were the clear winners in HT. Even McIntosh seemed inferior(bass overwelming). Paradigm was O.K. but sound definition was lacking and the set up was of strastopheric pricing. Another HT company shared the 2nd floor corridor with Outlaw and Paradigm. It used short-skirted girls to entice people in. When a company resorts to such pratices, its a clue that something might be wrong. In this case, the picture was good, the sound eech. My personal take but I think shared by many other attendees. Funny note, Bösendorfer was demoing its magnificent speakers in the room next to Outlaw. Let's just say that the Outlaw demo stole the show many times despite the wall. Too bad for Bösendorfer who had among the best sounding high end speakers there.

I was hoping to hear the Anthem / Paradigm demo while at the show (it was only a few doors down from the Outlaw room). When I walked over there, they were willing to give me a ticket to come back in 3 hours to hear it. I didn't have the time to wait around for that. Did anyone get a chance to hear that demo and the Outlaw demo, your feedback would be interesting.

I'm hoping for a good 990/950 in-home comparison. But it's looking like we'll need to wait a few weeks for some of you on the wait list to receive your 990's before we get that.

Grok,
Looking at my picture of the 770 and 990, and my recollection, the 990 was at least as big as the 770 (I’m guessing that maybe the spec’d height of the 990 doesn’t include the feet?). I would think that you're going to need to rearrange your rack for the 990. Reading the 950 manual, the Outlaws suggest 2 to 3 inches of clearance for ventilation, so even if it does just fit, it would probably be good idea to get more space for the 990.

The 990 specs list the height at 7.75 inches. The 770 specs list the height at 7.75" with feet. Tinkering a bit with ScottH's picture makes me think the 990's height may include the feet as well, as in the picture the two look to be almost exactly the same height (in fact, the 770 is about 20 or 25 pixels higher, which amounts to about 2.5% taller assuming there's no perspective issues throwing us off). Based on that, I'd say the 7.75" number should be pretty accurate.

Gonk gave the link to Tom Norton's review on HT at HES. It gives a good impression on the whole.

Anthem/Paradigm gave a good performance but simply not good enough to beat Outlaw. Altought I was sitted in a excellent spot, sound effects were not as convincing with Anthem. Norton's wrote of «too much proeminence in the high-end» as the cause of their relative failure.

I'll say for Yamaha that the YSP-1 system sounded good but in a very small room. It is not a musical system. Music sounded needlessy bright. Two years from now, this type of system may appear in Walmart or Costco because it seems so easy to imitate cheaply.

A big disapointment came from Aperion. I went three times to their two rooms. Everytime, the sound was disapointing : too boomy, brittle treble. The listening rooms were always packed and that may have played a role. But I also had to ask three different representatives of the compagny in order to get the SPL sensitivity of the speakers before someone answered me vaguely «somewhere in the upper-80s». With the purchase of the 990, I now need 7 new speakers. Let's just say that I won't go for Aperion.

Front:

The other HT company on the same 2nd floor corridor had "short skirted girls to entice people in". Presumably, the Outlaws had Peter standing outside of their room to lure people in . Clearly, the choice was obvious.

Since I didn't attend the show, I'm afraid I'm going to have to see some pics of the "short-skirted girls" in order to form my own opinion as to which vendor had a superior exhibit!