Present and former 950 owners: I thought we could all sound off in this one topic and save prospective buyers a bit of searching through the Saloon to hear a summary of our experience with the 950. What is your opinion of the unit after having some experience with it? How did it compare to other products you've owned?

As you start your reply, please say:

• If you are a current or former 950 owner,
• If you're thinking about buying one and have a question,
• If you bought something else, why not the 950?

I'm a 950 owner, I'm very pleased and couldn't have done better without spending two, three or four times more - hence my Outlaw nickname.* In combination with an Outlaw amp, a distinct improvement over my formerly upper-end Onkyo THX certified receiver. I would definitely make the same choice if I had to do it over again.

(*With 'bestbang' I don't mean to imply just 'loud,' I mean detailed and accurate even when loud.)

I hope prosepective new Outlaws will find this helpful. (Please stay on topic! If you have a large, single subject area to explore, perhaps start a new post or point to another existing post in the Saloon.)

ok, you got me.
i'm still a prospective buyer (950/7100+cables) with a few anxieties about pulling the trigger...

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source:- http://hometheaterhifi.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-29.html

author - Brian Florian
Not sure about the Vans (I mean, I don't know what their rated Impedance is). If they are not a particularly difficult load, a receiver can do well. With a decent AV receiver (with pre-outs) you can add a power amplifier later. That's how I use my Onkyo TX-SR800. There is not a single speaker hooked up to it. I felt, after looking at everything out there, that it was the best processor around $1K (better than the Outlaw for sure). The 950 really missed the mark on software. Its CPU is very slow and there are several errors in the way it does things (time alignment, digital input assignment etc).
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While I am inclined to believe the praises about the 950's sound quality, the above comments really make me worry. Can those shortcomings be overcome or we just have to live with them? Are they really that bad or simply inconveniences? should i wait for the new 970(???) with the fix?

reading a new owner's (jeff davis) rave comments of the 950/770 somehow give me something to hold on to if ever i pull the trigger.

ronald

testtone, I was in the same boat a few months ago and had some reservations about pulling the trigger on a new 950. I had read complaints similar to the one you posted and was unsure if the 950 would be up to the job. I was running a severely overworked Onkyo 601 in my brand new dedicated ht room and was extremely dissatisfied with the results. I'm running Swans 6.1s up front, a C3 center, and DIY rears built with the matching 6.5 poly mid-bass and tweeters from the 6.1s. When trying to reach levels within -10/-5 of reference the amp was clipping and I feared for my speakers lives. I decided it was time to suck it up and place an order. The 950 arrived the next morning and I spent the majority of the day getting things set up and calibrated. I chose not to go with the 770 amp, as enticing as it was, and instead purchased 5 Crown XLS series pro amps. I'm sure I'll get some mixed responses on that one, but I spent less on those amps than I would for an Outlaw, or any other consumer amp out there. I'm running two 202s for surrounds and rear surounds, a 402 for the center, a 602 on the mains, and a 602 bridged for the sub. I can't even begin to tell you how pleased I was with the end result. It was complete night and day for me. Suddenly dialouge was clear, effects were audible that I never knew were there, dynamics, impact, it was all there. I will of course attribute a lot of these improvements to the fact that I now had massive amounts of headroom thanks to the Crowns, but I would have to assume that the 770 or 755 would yield the same results. The 950 was about as easy to use as anything I've ever set up. It's a very straightforward, no frills piece of gear. You get what you get and that's it. But what you get is great sound and flexibility without the useless bells and whistles. I'm the kind of guy who likes to tinker and fine tune my system. I don't need auto room calibration or a ton of DSP settings that I'll never use. I like my gear to be user friendly and that's what the 950 is. There have been only two issues I've had, and they're trivial at best. First off, it takes a second or two to lock on to the audio format (DD,DTS) when a movie spins up. Not a big issue for me, but a minor annoyance when jumping to a scene in the middle of a movie. The second issue was having only two component inputs necessitated an outboard switchbox. Again, not a big deal for me, and not too many people need 5 component inputs. Beyond those two things the 950 has done everything I've expected it to do, and I've been more than pleased with the results. It's been said many times before, but to get this level of performance from another pre/pro, I'd need to pay 2,3,4 times as much as I did. Not worth it in my opinion. Pull the trigger, you won't be sorry.

I'm a 950 owner and have been for quite some time. It's certainly the best-sounding such piece of equipment I've used, and it continues to offer what I think is an excellent value. There are other pre/pros on the market that offer more features and can comfortably match its sonic performance, but they also cost more money - and some of them offer what I consider a more difficult interface. I'll offer an example: a co-worker (the VP of our small consulting engineering firm) decided to replace his Spectral two-channel pre-amp and amp with a surround system and elected to stay with the same dealer he'd used for many years. As a result, he ended up with a Rotel RSP-1068 and a Rotel five-channel amp. The package cost him about as much as a 950/755 combo would have after he traded in the Spectral gear (at a trade value that could have paid for a 950). The dealer is one of the best in town, but because he didn't pay for an installer to come out and set it up he received no support. I became his tech support, including a Sunday afternoon at his house tinkering with it. It was sort of fun to play with the Rotel and B&W combo he had, but afterward my wife and I both felt that our 950/750/Paradigm Reference system (at the time using a Panasonic DVD player as CD transport, although I now have a Yamaha DVD-S1500 in that role) sounded nicer and less harsh than his Meridian CD player/Rotel/B&W system. (Personal taste varies of course, especially when it comes to speakers, so YMMV.) On top of that, the interface and documentation on the Rotel were atrocious, especially when handed over to someone with no background in setting up a home theater system - Outlaw's documentation is much clearer and easier to use. Also, the free advise available here in the Saloon along with the free tech support that the Outlaws offer really can be a huge benefit for someone learning their way around a home theater system. The 950 was never meant to be the end-all surround sound processor - if that is the goal, there are some very good candidates available, but the price tags reflect the differences between them and the 950. The 950 was meant to be a good quality unit at a great price, and I still think it does a great job of that. Particularly for people who are new to home theater, the 950's interface, documentation, manufacturer tech support, and this forum also factor into the equation in the 950's favor.

testtone - I remember seeing that thread a while back. Brian's a very knowledgeable guy, and I think many of the benchmark standards he and others at Secrets have developed for both DVD players and surround sound processors are extremely valuable tools that manufacturers would do well to look closely at (including Outlaw in the development of future surround sound processors). I do wonder a bit about his comments regarding the 950, though. The 950 does have a few quirks (the slow digital audio signal lock has often been commented on, and the speaker distance settings for all four surrounds do share a common setting), but I've awlays been extremely happy with the digital input assignment method it employs and even when I did have an asymetrical surround speaker layout I found the time alignment worked fine for me.

I'm very excited to see what sorts of refinements and advances appear in the 950's eventual successor - additional surround modes like Pro Logic IIx, more extensive video switching, and so on - but I'm not yet ready to tell anyone who is interested in the 950 to sit on the sidelines and wait for it to arrive. The 1070 is still a few months off, and while I feel certain work has already begun on a 950 replacement I also don't expect to see that replacement start shipping for a year or more. A year of waiting would be infinitely more pleasant with a 950 to keep you company.

testtone,

I too am a prospective owner of the 950 and one of outlaws' power amps ( 3 m200's or a 7100 ). I have been slowly accumulating cash for this purchase, and so far, I have seen nothing to dissuade me from this course. I have hunted for negatives of the 950 and I must admit your link is the FIRST one I have seen, and I have not been shy about looking. I have also tried the Receiver route, but so far none has worked out for me.

Of course there is always the Outlaws 30 day money-back guarantee, which as far as I am concerned puts the situation in a no risk basis. If 30 days is not enough time for some detail to surface that is a dealbreaker for you, then it probably does not exist.

Just my .05 worth,

Bob045

I have owned the 950/7100 combo since July of 2003 and have never even considered sending back this equipment. This was by far the best audio investment that I have ever made. I have owned equipment from Adcom, Denon and Sony ES and have listened in detail to Anthem, Lexicon, Parasound, Rotel and B&K. Is the Outlaw better than Adcom, Denon and Sony ES, absolutely. Is it better than Rotel and B&K, it is close, but for the money yes. Lexicon, Anthem and Parasound are superior products, but $3,000.00 to $8,000.00 superior, no way!!! This is as close to true High-End Theatre sound without taking out a mortgage on your home to pay for it. The only notable fault I have ever found is the late 80's/early 90's NAD/Proton styling? If it saves me a few thousand bucks, so be it! Buy an Outlaw system, you will not be disappointed in the least.

When playing CD's in my DVD/CD player, I have found that the Stereo Bypass mode of the 950 is very very clean.

The Panasonic DVD91 unit has a CD upsample feature that creates a 24/88.2 signal in the player before D/A conversion, and it makes a signficant improvement in many recordings.

Do you use the CD upsample feature of your Yamaha DVD-S1500? I understand it upconverts to 24/192, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I was curious as to how valuable this feature was on the Yamaha.

Thank you in advance...

Allan

Crown is good. Many commercial theaters also use them. XLS series is very cost effective and performs great; it is similar to QSC's RMX series.

With the S1500, I have also found myself using stereo bypass for listening to CD's. With my previous DVD player (Panasonic RA60), I tended to prefer using the digital output.

The S1500's manual is not particularly clear on the matter of the upconversion. I do have it turned on, but there is a comment in the manual that suggests that it is treated as "off" if the output is set to "multichannel" elsewhere (which it needs to be in order to get multichannel playback from SACD's). I haven't had a chance to figure out if the stereo analog output still upconverts.

Crown is good. Many commercial theaters also use them. XLS series is very cost effective and performs great; it is similar to QSC's RMX series. [/QB][/QUOTE]


Yeah, I've been very pleased with the results so far. Being a musician and aspiring studio engineer, I was very familiar with what I'd be getting from a Crown. Of course the XLS is their "budget" line, but in a setting where they will most likely never be pushed as hard as they would be when used for live sound reinforcement, I don't think the "budget" label really applies. I certainly could have spent more money on some K1s or QSC PLX series amps, but I just couldn't justify the extra money for what may or may not be a margainal improvement. Though I will say that the K series is very tempting if the upgrade bug hits again soon. The only downside to the XLS series is fan noise. It's a non-issue for me since I have a dedicated AV closet on the opposite side of the wall my screen is on, but this would be a major issue if I had an AV rack in the listening/viewing room. I believe the QSC RMX series actually has more fan noise since it's a single fan as opposed to the Crown's dual fans. There are aftermarket fans that can be used to modify these amps and lower fan noise, but I'd rather not void the warranty. The decision to go Crown over QSC was strictly personal preference. I was not as familiar with QSC and thus decided to go with Crown. While I do love the Crown amps, the 950 is really the piece of gear I'm most happy with. If I wasn't giving the Crowns a clean signal to begin with I doubt I'd be singing their praises so much. I had a chance to listen to a friends brand new B&K setup recently and left his house confident that I had made the right decision. He's running the Ref 50, Ref 200.5, and a full Paradigm speaker setup. I did really enjoy the Paradigms (very articulate speakers), but I did not believe that the extra money he spent on the B&K elevated his system to a level that was sonically superior to the 950/Crown setup. And he's still lacking PLIIx, which puts his feature set basically in the same boat as the 950. The Ref 50 does sport the THX tag, but I don't think that necessarily makes for a better product. With the Ref 50 retailing for about $1800 right now, that extra $1000 seems silly. For me, and probably for most of us who own the 950, it's all about getting the absolute most for my money. I don't think that I'd be getting that with other products out there. As enticing as it is to have that flashy, big-name piece of gear, what it ends up being about is performance. At this price there's no competition.