Jeff,
I hope that stuff's already fixed, but since I'm not listening to my 950 right now, I've gotta wonder if they missed any of that stuff you caught.

Matthew,
Ha! It sounds like we got almost the same deal! I got one of that last '00's when the '01's came out (w/o leather and 4 year 0% int.).
A funny note... the models that don't have the Bose cd deck and speakers come with... Bose speakers and cd deck! It just doesn't have Bose printed on it, and it doesn't come with the top of the door tweeters (they just cover the holes w/ cloth!)
Somebody else's gotta be making that cd deck, but they do call is a Bose model. Wierd.

I totally agree with you about not wanting to blow a ton of money even if you had it to blow. Sounds like you try to get something as nice as you can, but without ignoring the word 'value'.

Azistoohot,
1) Anyone who thinks 500K is peanuts for an HT is far too rich! And you can have a world class system for waaaaaaay less bones than that anyway! Those are rip off 'installer' prices.

2) Az ryan has to disagree with your moniker. Everywhere else is too cold! -heh
Have you escaped the desert or are you just complainin' 'bout it? I escaped the tundra of WI so I can't whine about the summer here. 118's a lot closer to perfect than -70 w/ the wind chill (the day I decided to escape!)!

Jim,

heheh- I took the chance that you'd post. I've yet to find a post you haven't started or replied to so it wasn't a bad bet. -heh

500k may be an over exaggeration, but 100k really isn't. My boss knows a woman who was employed by Priceline and she sold her stock for over 4 million. My roommate worked where Priceline is, and he said that he saw at least 4 Porsche 911s there (which are 69k stripped). These people made quite a bit of money. If you've made 4 million through a dotcom, buying a house for 1 million or 2 million is a distinct possibility, and 100k for a home theater system in a 2 million dollar house is about right. And, it's easy to get 100k for home theater. For instance, a Proceed home theater system would cost you 5k for the amps (assume 5 channel), 5-6k for the preamp, and 5-6k for the DVD/CD player. Then, add some nice revels at 15k for fronts and 7.5k for rears (I'm not sure what the center costs), and you're up to 45k just for sound. Then add a 30k projector, screen, and scaler, and you're nearing 80k. Then, you still have to add cables and other hardware, a fancy $1000 remote to control everything, fancy (remote-controlled) drapes...

Personally, I'll never be able to afford that, but I'll also never have stock in a dotcom.

About the beta test -- I'm wondering why there were so few beta testers. I would think that 10 beta testers would be the minimum necessary, given the complexity of this type of equipment. Heck, I just tried the THX button on my Onkyo for the first time last night, and I've had this system for months. There's just too many features with most systems these days to test everything. Additionally, the more beta testers, the more weird equipment that may or may not like the Outlaw stuff. For instance, I was using my friend's Proceed amp for a while, and my Onkyo's 12V output operates differently than what the Proceed amp was designed to accept. The Onkyo kept turning the Proceed amp off and on at weird times. This type of error is very hard to find without a lot of people testing.

Are any of the beta testers using the "Triple Xover" function of 950's bass management?

Could those that have describe their speaker's frequency response specs, and the 950 xover setups and experiences with different xover frequencies they have tested/used?


Jeff, I did read about your use of the Triple with your Snells. I'm trying to configure for Dynaudio Contours.
bstan

[This message has been edited by bstan (edited February 28, 2002).]

Merc (John Morris) at Home Theater Forum has used the triple crossover some (Robert Fowkes has a THX speaker setup, so they're all designed for an 80Hz crossover). You can see his comments here .

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Gonk

Speaking of dot coms, last fall I heard a presentation by Jakob Neilsen who is renown expert on web usability. His recommendation on testing for the web was to get five users and have them do actual work on your web site. By the time they run through their test, you will know if you are on the right track.

What does that have to do with the price of eggs in China? IMHO, I think it shows you don't need a huge number of beta testers to run an effective evaluation program, but it is crucial to test with real users. Doing so avoids "blind spots" that can frequently happen with internal testing teams. The real highly technical/methodical testing done in house. So what you are doing with the outside testers is checking for the end user/equipment interface rather than minutia. If you pick your beta testers well they will pick up on much of the detailed testing done in house, but they will occsionally pick up on other problems (usually minor and sometimes major).

Yes, they are late -- there's no denying that. But I have no any interest in dealing with any product that is under cooked. I manage an IT group that has an 800 node network and I don't like dealing with flakey or quriky equipment or software in our networks. We deal every day with PC software that is pushed out on the public way too early and makes us and our end users feel like we beta testers instead of end users. I don't have time or the desire to deal with stuff that works sometimes and not others. I want to be able to stick any disc in to my DVD or LD or whatever player and not have to worry about if this is one of the titles that does or doesn't work. So I see it as a good thing that Outlaw pulled their product back to get it closer to perfect.

I suppose if they go through all of this and the 950 still has significant problems with the feature set they have committed to on the web site then I would have a legitimate beef with them. But that's not happening right now. I for one am willing to wait for a clean build.

Just my $.02.

Eric