I've recently been introduced to the Outlaw line of products and I'm seriously considering a 950/750 combo. I am hoping that the board will indulge me some honest answers.

1. Are there features/technology that are absent from the 950 that are "must have"?
2. I've heard a lot of talk about settings...what is the issue here?
3. I've been see-sawing back and forth between a new receiver (Denon AVR 3802) and seperates. What will the 950 do/not do that the Denon will/will not? I can get into the Denon for $1600Can or about $875 US. The Outlaw combo will cost me almost exactly double. Is the value there or am I paying for the sake of having seperates? I have had good experience with the performance and quality of Denon, but I don't want to miss the boat on seperates.

Thanks in advance for your answers.

John

I'll offer my opinion.

1. The 950 has a pretty solid feature list (see this chart for a comparison of features between the 950 and some alternatives, including some of the Denon AVR 3802's larger siblings). Nothing has every feature, but the 950 gets most of the key ones. The absence of things like headphone jack, phono input, THX certification, or RS-232 connection may affect some people more than others.
2. The settings you've been hearing about are a couple of different issues. First, the time delay -- the surrounds and the surround backs all use the same delay, and there is apparently not a time delay setting for the sub. Some people who are very sensitive to time delay consider these to be a major problem. One member at Home Theater Forum (whose post was lost in the database crash yesterday) did some tests, and found that he found no discernable difference on the surrounds but some difference on the sub (he suggested playing with phase settings on the sub to resolve that problem). Also, the 950 does not save delay and gain settings discretely for each input -- the settings are universal to all inputs. Again, some people currently use separate settings for different sources and are concerned about this. Other people don't want or need the added control. I'm in the latter camp, but depending on your past experience and preference you may be in the former group.
3. the 3802 is not in the chart , but the 4802 is. Looking at Denon's site, the 3802 offers many of the digital decoding options available in the 950. There is a somewhat adjustable crossover in the 3802, but not as flexible as the 950's triple crossover. The 950 offers more digital inputs (an extra coaxial and an extra optical), but is otherwise very similar as far as I/O is concerned. The 950 offers "sound quality" that, based on beta tester feedback, is on par with and even better than the Denon 5700, so you're looking at spending some more to get a better sounding system. Separates also offers two of the inherent separates benefits: upgrade flexibility and separation of the power amplification gear from the processing hardware -- if there is a new, wonderful super-duper surround scheme that makes both the 950 and the 3802 obsolete you could replace the 950 with a new pre/pro and not have to invest in new amplification, and the separate pre/pro and amp are better than a receiver at keeping the more delicate electronics of pre-amplification and processing isolated from the big, power-hungry amps.

Hope this helps.

------------------
Gonk

That's the first time I've actually heard someone say that they actively don't want a feature.


With this one feature (+/- gain per input), some sources are louder than others. It's a pain to have to turn down the processor before I switch from Tivo to SAT or be blown away by volume when on my current box I can just set the tivo to +4db and keep everything even. I can't imagine why you wouldn't want this control.


brianca

Hmmm... Re-read my original statement, poor choice of wording on my part: "some people don't consider it critical" might have been a better way to put it. I'm not going to turn my nose up and some additional feature if it is present (unless it is of very limited use and incurs a cost premium, that is). Between my wife and myself and our various TV viewing / music listening situations, the master volume level varies widely and regularly on my system even if the source being used stays constant. Always has. That's just me, though -- I can see where a feature like separate gain adjustments for different sources could be very useful in many cases, potentially even essential, even though it's not something I've ever found myself in need of. As I said to svtsho, some features (like this one) are of major importance to some people but not to others.

------------------
Gonk

Don't get me wrong. I'm on the list for the 950. I'll probably pull the Tivo out of the theater because of the volume difference between it and the other sources. It really is a problem if I set them all to flat gain and switch back and forth. I was just surprised to hear you say that you didn't want the feature. I thought that's what you meant.

I think maybe you're misunderstanding the issue I have. It's not that I don't want to change the volume when listening to a source. There is no perfect volume. But volume -20 is about 4db quieter on my tivo than on my other components. With the B&K that I just sold, I could set the Tivo input to be +4db compared to everything else at the same volume, not to go to -25 whenever I switched to it. That way if I was watching the Tivo loudly and switched to SAT, I stayed to the same volume instead of getting a 4db boost.

Agreed that it's not a deal killer for most folks, even me, and I use it on my current system. As long as it sounds a good as advertised, I'm in.


brianca...

[This message has been edited by brianca (edited February 27, 2002).]

<<-4dB>>

I have similar experience with my cable box. A thought similar to one I posted about the 950 volume knob, would be to program a macro that raises the volume from its current level to +4dB when going to Tivo and lowers it back to -4dB for everything else. Depending on your remote, it could be tricky, but on the Pronto I would have the panel that switched from any source to Tivo be such that Tivo was the only volume modified device. Once on the Tivo panel, the other devices would have the volume modifier in. You just have to be careful in the programming and make sure not to cheat by manually switching screens.

Yeah, it sounds like a lot of work, but it could be worth it if you feel like keeping the Tivo and not being annoyed with the volume. I've had a lot of success using the programmability of the Pronto to solve a few less than friendly interfaces.

Just a thought.

S.

Maybe someone can answer this question.
Can you adjust the volume for ALL the speakers independently from one another on the 950?

Yeah, but those settings will apply to all inputs uniformly, as far as we can tell right now.

For the changing volume problem, if you have a programmable remote (such as a Pronto), then you can make the remote turn down the preamp (or turn it up) when changing sources. This is what I do, and my Onkyo has a feature to add or remove db when changing sources. I actually have three sources that can give me this problem: DVD and two satellite receivers. The sat receivers will do this when changing channels, if one channel is regular (or stereo) and another channel is DD (Dolby Digital), so the Onkyo wouldn't help this situation.