I am thinking of getting the Outlaw 950 pre-amp, but right now all I have is a 2 channel Adcom GFA 545 amp to couple it with. Will this suffice until I am able to get together the bucks to spring for the Outlaw amp?

My speakers aren't big power eaters. I have an NHT SW-10 powered subwoofer, an NHT SC2 Center Channel Speaker, the rear channel speakers are 8" CRS SpeakerCraft ceiling mounts and the front channel speakers are Sound Dynamics RTS-3's. I have the same SpeakerCraft speakers in the kitchen, bedroom and on the porch, all with separate volume controls running through a Niles switcher.

Will this amp be able to provide me with enough power to get some decent sound out of my system while I save up for a 5 channel amp? I'm currently using a Nakamichi AV7 Surround Receiver (80w x 5). Will there be a noticable drop off in performance?

The Adcom should work fine -- it's rated at 100W, I believe, much like Outlaw's 7100. Being only two channel, however, it'll of course only be good for a piece of the home theater. The Nakamichi does include a 5.1 analog input, and a number of people have elected to use such receivers as temporary amps while saving up for the real thing (there's a lengthy discussion of it here -- D.Rowe and Qyv10 are both using a receiver as a power amp while they save up for a power amp). This arrangement will not sound as good as a real amp -- the receiver has lower power output to begin with, plus an extra volume control in the signal path, plus less headroom and reserve than a dedicated amp will have. The upgrade from a Pro-Logic receiver's front-end to a 950 should certainly provide quite a lot of enjoyment even under these circumstances, however, and the Adcom and Nakamichi could be used to run your five home theater speakers and have the second zone (connected to the Adcom, most likely, although you could use two channels from the Nakamichi for this and run your mains with the Adcom for the time being) feeding the Niles switcher and on to the three pairs of remote speakers.

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gonk -- Saloon Links | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | 950 Review

4corners, as Gonk said both D.Rowe and I are using a receiver as the amp for now.
Fortunatly my receiver has "main in" inputs along with a 6 channel input so I can skip the entire preamp stage in my receiver.

The main in's are the input part of the amp section so no extra volume knob or anything else.
This was part of my buying decision when I got the receiver as I expected new sound formats at some time in the future.

You might want read the thread gonk refered to for an easy way to set up your volumes to avoid some confusion.

Hope this helps

[This message has been edited by Qyv10 (edited November 20, 2003).]

Cool guys.

Thanks so much for the input. I never thought about using my receiver as an amp. In fact, I didn't even know you could do that.

Learn something new every day. ;> )

I'll definitely check out the thread you referenced.

you cant always.