Just a newbie to the Outlaw scene. As you all usually don't flame newbies, I feel I can ask this silly question. Where was the M200 manufactured? Was it in the USA like the other
amplifiers? This was not in the FAQ, at least as far as I could see.

Thanks,

Bob045

I believe that unlike the Model 7100, 755, and 770, the Model 200 is made in Taiwan.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

Thanks Gonk. I appreciate the quick response!

the m200 is a different breed alright. i still dont know why they cant post a picture of the inside of the m200. the new deal for bstock and free shipping is pretty tempting...

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This post has been brought to you by curegeorg, thanks for reading.

I am curious myself. I have seen an image of the insides through the vents on top ( where I don't remember) but now that you mention it...WHY is there not a picture in the M200 gallery?

Just curious....

Well, I may be mistaken but the gallery photos (which were posted a long time ago as an early teaser for the amp) look to me to be computer renderings - not photos of an actual unit - which would make an interior picture difficult. I suspect they just never got around to having a photo shoot of the M200, or they never updated the product page gallery after such a shoot.

The b-stock deal is interesting. I'm actually already starting to set a little money aside here and there in order to replace an ailing two-channel amp with a pair of them, hopefully around the end of the year.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

I emailed them about the pics for the m200 some time ago and they gave me some weak blow-off response. If you have pictures of the insides of some products, the consistent thing to do would be to have the same picture(s) for everything. It makes me suspicious and honestly (eventhough it is kind of stupid I suppose), has prevented me from buying m200s.

Oh well, I can use the money elsewhere...



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This post has been brought to you by curegeorg, thanks for reading.

We all have concerns that drive our spending decisions. I do think it's safe to say that Outlaw's not shipping boxes full of rocks, though.

I suspect that Bob045 may have seen the same pictures of the top of the Model 200 that I have: JasonA's pictures posted about a year and a half ago.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

I would definitely agree here, that Outlaw is not shipping boxes with rocks in it. I am slightly annoyed at myself for missing out on the free shipping special that ended July 14 of this year. Only found out about it 2 days ago!

That'll teach me to keep my eyes open. Gonk, I too am setting a little money aside as I can to buy a pair of the amps, and I would feel MUCH more comfortable if I could see the insides of one of them! BTW the pictures I saw were not of Jasons but came mighty close, it was an angled shot with nice light so that the vents ALMOST seemed to disappear. Maybe I should call them and ask them to send me an email of such a picture as a prerequisite to buying them....

What's the big deal with pictures of the internals? I can say that the M200's have some kick-ass rocks in them.

Indeed very assertive rocks I would think. In regards to those assertive rocks here is another newbie question...

I have a Yamaha reciever rx-v995 rated at 100Wpc x 5. Some time ago I noticed that the power consumption on the back of the reciever is 400W. So the reciever cannot do what it is advertised to do. Since I bought it back in 1998, I learned to live with it. It does handle the center and 2 surrounds just fine.

Now for the question. For the Mains I have a pair of Cambrige Soundworks Tower II's driven by an even older onkyo reciever at 80Wpc (stereo) from the yamaha's pre-outs.
As the speakers are rated at 200w continous maximun, would I be slowly killing them if I connected an M200 amp to the preouts of the yamaha? So the resulting setup would be 2 M200's ( one for each main ) and the yamaha for the center and 2 surrounds. Additionally, since I would then effectively have 200 wpc for the front channels and only 100wpc for the center and surrounds, would the fronts "drown out" the other speakers?

Thanks,

Bob045

Bob045,
It seems to me like the M200 would be a perfect match for your speakers power-wise that is. 200W amp and 200W rating on the speakers. No reason to fear for the life of your speakers. It's been my experience that most speaker damage is done by overdriving an underpowered amplifier. Those poor little tweeters just don't take too kindly to an amplifier that's driven into clipping.

As to the issue of relative channel balance, that's a matter of speaker sensitivity and amplifier gain, not it's ultimate power rating. The mains may ultimately be able to play louder when the system is turned up because of the extra power in reserve but you don't want to go past the point where the other channels start to give up the ghost anyway. Your speakers are rated at a middle of the road 90dB so I don't think getting the loudness levels in line with the center and surrounds would be an issue. I assume the Yamaha has facilities for channel balance calibration.

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Tekdredger

Thanks for the info Tekdredger. The Yamaha does NOT have features for channel calibration, all it has is Large and small settings for the speakers, Bass out is Main/sw or sw and Main level at 'Normal' or -10db. However the Normal and -10db would take care of any apparent volume disparity, I suppose.

In view of that, it may be best to upgrade....Sigh. $579 for 2 M200's vs a 950 and a 5 or 7 channel amplifier....This will take some time to think through

Tekdredger hit the nail on the head as far as matching amp to speaker and blending the different channels together. I was surprised to hear that a Dolby Digital receiver like the RX-V995 lacked channel calibration capability, so I grabbed the manual from Yamaha's site and skimmed through it. There actually is a way to adjust the channels, but it looks a little bit more complicated than I'm used to. Check out pages 32 through 34 of the manual (also available online ) for the exact procedure. That should allow you to get all five channels balanced properly even with outboard amplification for the mains.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

DOH!

Yes, that would work, wouldn't it. Thanks Gonk. I grabbed the manual as soon as I saw your post, and yes, you are right! I was thinking automatic channel balancing, for some reason. Why, I don't know.

Thanks again,

Bob045

Bob045:
I have the same receiver and am doing the same thing except I have M200s across the 3 fronts. To adjust the levels of the speakers simply hit the test tone in setup, you can then adjust the levels of the center and rears to match the levels of the front L&R. You will find that the M200s make a remarkable improvement in the sound and is especially evident in the bass output of your speakers as compared to the Yamaha. Bass seems more "punchy" (hows that for an audiophile term ;-). I am very happy with my 200s.

Roland,

3 across the front, do you have those amps plugged into a dedicated circuit? Way I look at it, it seems that at max power draw, you would need 15 Amperes for them. Please correct me if I am wrong but if 600 watts is max power consumption, for the M200, that is 5 amperes of current ( 5 amps X 120 volts = 600 Watts) So 3 amplifiers = 15 amperes of current. If you would be inclined, how do you have those hooked up?

Thanks,

Bob045

There's also efficiency. [insert: monkey] It's not talked about much here. Getting a full 200 watss from each amp is a LOT of power actually. It would be hard to stay in the room.

It is not necessary to provide a single dedicated 15A circuit for three M200's if they are being used as intended (home theater / music amplification) because of diversity: you will never drive all three amps to full output at once. You may in fact never drive any of them to that point individually. Now if you are using them to run some sort of air raid siren or driving tactile transducers with a constant signal for a shaker table or something bizarre like that, we might be looking at a different scenario...

An extension of this logic: the Model 770 provides 200W per channel for seven channels, yet the nameplate rating is 1800W - exactly the same as the Model 755, which has the same 200W per channel for only five channels, and exactly 15A worth of load on a 120V system. Add to this the fact that people can and do operate a 770 on the same circuit as other electronics (pre/pro, source devices, TV, subwoofer amp). This is possible because many electronics (particularly amplifiers, but also components like PC power supplies or transformers) never draw their nameplate rating in normal use.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

Seemed like a good place for me to chime in. Just picked up a B-M200 (just one) and hooked it up to my 950 and Definitive Technology C/L/R 2300. Compared to the sound quality & 85 watts my Pioneer Elite was giving... I am very pleased with the difference. So much more detail to hear in a few dialog scenes in LOTR. Needless to say..I'll be ordering a pair to drive my BP2006TL's if the don't sell out too soon.

An air raid siren, of course, what a fine addition that would make. However, that is on the back burner as it is a bit pricey...

I had to send the cambridge soundworks speakers back, so I am back to the "old" system

Polk RTi 6's (2) 125 watt rating per speaker
Polk Rt 15's rear (2) 100 watt rating per speaker
Infinity center channel cc-1 (1) ( sounds great btw) 80 watt rating per speaker

This question is kinda off topic now, but a pair of m200's for the 2 polks ( which are rated at 125 watts ) seems a bit like overkill. I was actually beginning to think of a 7100 for the setup, as the ratings on the speakers is for recommended amplifier power. Opinions/ideas?

I also would like to thank everyone who has responded to this post, you have all been very helpful indeed, and I apologize for the length that this post has grown to!

It would be fine to put 200's on the Polks (the extra power provides extra headroom), but the 7100 could be a way to get the benefits of separate amplification all the way around.

Oh, and no need to apologize for the length of the thread - we've kicked around some good stuff here.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

Thanks again, gonk.

Regarding the M200's, does anyone know how near they can be to a tv? Tv is a flat screen CRT type.

Thanks,

Bob045

Just noticed something of concern. The power requirements of all the amps (except the M200) are 115VAC +/- 3% or 111.55-118.45 VAC. Is this correct? 115VAC seems a bit odd, I would have thought it should be 120VAC +/- 3%. The M200 Spec for power requirement is not on the website.

But the manuals do indeed say 120VAC +/- 3% ( including the M200 ). My voltage is 120.7 to 121 according to the DMM. Has anyone else noticed this discrepancy?

Out of curiousity, which is correct, the manual or the website? ( Personally, I would believe the manual. but thought I would ask )

No need to worry, and in my experience both are equally correct. 120V and 115V (and 110V) are basically the same, because our electrical distribution system allows for a certain amount of variation. It's just like when I schedule commercial HVAC equipment - 460V and 480V are both used interchangeably.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

i, on the other hand, would be hesitant to pair an m200 with a speaker rated to handle only 125wts. especially if its a polk, because they are known for overrating their power handling capabilities a bit. while a 200wt amp only running at 100wts does provide more headroom and better quality than a 100wt amp wide open, you can blow your speakers if you overdrive them. 100wts coming from a 100wt amp is much more damaging for your speakers than 100wts from a 200wt amp tho. so i guess, my hesitation comes from knowing the limit of where you can go as far cranking it up. if you can control yourself and not crank it up "as loud as it can go", then by all means it will be great, but i like to see what my gear can actually take vs what it says it can (within some moderation mind you). just keep that in mind if you have an amp that is more powerful than your speakers.

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This post has been brought to you by curegeorg, thanks for reading.

Bob:
I just saw your question. The answer is yes, I have all 3 M200 plugged into a dedicated 20 amp outlet(pair).

[This message has been edited by Roland (edited August 02, 2004).]

Others that know more, please feel free to correct me, but . . .

I always thought that CLEAN power was ok for speakers, it was DIRTY power that killed speakers.

So if you had 200WPC CLEAN hooked up to a speaker rated at 125WPC, you would be ok, but if you took an 80 WPC amp, and clipped the heck out of it, it could hurt the speaker.

I think that within reason you are correct. While it is possible to take a 200W amp and blow a speaker that's rated for 125W if you crank it up loud enough, I've also been under the impression that it is typically easier to blow the same speaker by pushing too hard with an undersized amp.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

Power is power. Too much is too much. If you fully clip a 100 watt amp then it will send 200 watts to the speaker. IIRC, the RMS rating of a speaker should be the amount of power it can take for 8 hours. Not sure if everyone abides by that though. For short bursts they can take more. For HT, I am not sure if that rating is thermal only or applies to excursion as well. Don't forget that music is dynamic. Even if you actually do send a full signal it won't be for very long at all.

If the speaker is rated right he should be fine.

Well now....

I must thank everyone for their responses here. Learned quite a bit. I will either go with 2 M200's to start off with or go with a 950/7100 combo package. The HT/Listening room is rather small at 13.5' Wide and 14.5' deep. So I think that even if I 'settle' for 100 wpc, I won't be disappointed.

Thanks to all,

Bob 045

Oh yes, that should be plenty. Another thing with the power. Pretty much all of us know doubling the power sent will give 3 more db, but we forget that going 3 db down will be half the power. So if you have 10 db of headroom before you max out your amp (say it's a 200 watt M200), that's only 20 watts. Just 3 db down would be 100 watts.

JT Clark,

I had to reread your post there, but I got it, I think. With a level of 20 watts ( using your figures ) 10db headroom= 20watts X ( 10^10db) = 20 watts * 10=200 watts.

With a 100 watt amp one gets 20 watts X (10 ^ 7 db)=20 X 5.11 = 100 watts ( Approximately ).

Sorry, I think I kind of jumped around in my explanation. Good to see you still got it.