As the proud owner of 7 m-200 mono blocks,
I am familiar with Outlaws products and performance. I was planning on adding a
950 pre/pro, but haven't for one reason.
The 950 does not have individual settings
for each input. My current reciever does
and I have some settings like this:
CD - sub -5db
DBS (tv) center -2, front +2
Being able to customize to each input makes
a huge difference in the quality of sound. I
hope Outlaw adds this feature soon.

I'm pretty sure that this feature will not be added to the 950 -- it was brought up when the 950 was released, and it sounded like memory and processing capacity did not allow for individual input settings like this. I would not be surprised to see at least some additional input setting memory to be included in the 950's successor, and possibly even in the 1050's replacement.

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

Sam- If that's your *only* reason, I would implore you to take advantage of the 30 day trial.

Shoot, even the Lexicon MC-8 doesn't have that feature, but I was happy enough with the 950 when I had it, and liked the 7.1 CES modes so much I moved to the MC-8 with Logic 7.

To be honest, I wish both units had customizeable inputs in that I'd set 2 ch CD sound for example to be full range mains, no sub, but still use the sub with a crossover for movie content.

But. The 950 is still the only solution for an all in one box with analog bass management for SACD/DVD-A. Even so many years after it's debut, I think think it's still an incredible value.

If you use the digital to analog converters within the 950 for CDs and DVDs, there will not be any difference in input levels that is not present in the original recording. I have tons of stuff routed through my 950 (a recording studio essentially), and I don't really notice any level discrepancies that need to be "fixed" by input level trimming. I think this is a non-issue in the real world.

The greatest inconsistency in levels, in my situation, is not exhibited as I change sources with the 950, but as I change ‘channels’ on digital cable. The cable company in my area is techno-poor – little effort toward quality in several respects. Even when remaining on a single channel, the local commercial inserts sometimes start off with high-level, overdriven distortion and take twenty seconds or so before some automated level-averaging equipment brings the level down. Then when the system returns to the network feed, the audio is severely low until a similar twenty seconds as elapsed for the level to increase again. This is not the only audio problem the cable company delivers, and there are other issues as well. Being the ‘only game in town’ provides little motivation for the company to do any better.

While having individual channel input level adjustments may have some benefit, the 950 simply delivers great quality and features at a great price.

If I had one or two analog sources that were consistently delivering levels high enough to make changing to a source an irritation because of sudden increases in volume, I might insert appropriate in-line attenuation as needed. Certainly I wouldn’t spend hundreds more on a processor just to gain the input level adjustments, or give up on some of what the 950 does best, especially when comparatively inexpensive attenuation is an option.


[This message has been edited by bestbang4thebuck (edited January 22, 2004).]