Hi Folks,

Beta Tester #3 signing in. I have a lengthy report to share, that I'll have to enter in bits because I do have a day job! I'll also answer any questions I can about the 950 and the beta process.

Yes, you're going to want to buy this piece. It's worth the wait.

First, let me tell you how this all started...

GOT A CALL

Sometime back in October, I got a call from Peter at Outlaw saying that I had been selected as one of the possible beta testers - if I agreed to their non-disclosure rules. Sure! (I didn't realize at the time I was talking to Peter Tribeman, one of the Outlaw principals.)

He said in reviewing my beta application, my system was "unremarkable", but two things stuck out. First, that we host regular movie night get-togethers with our friends, and second, that I lived just one town over from where he was. He said he'd like to come over to hear it when we got it installed. Sure!

I asked what they expected the differences to be between the beta unit and the finished product. The biggest thing would be that there wouldn't be a manual for it. He also said something about the remote not being ready.

I asked if he'd heard the early production model. He hadn't, but said that the specs they got back were incredible and were better than they expected.

The next day I called Scott and left my shipping information. He said I'd probably get the unit by Thanksgiving.

On November 26th, we had our first child and I spent a week with Mom and baby at the hospital. I hadn't gotten the 950 yet, and was worried that it was sitting out on our front steps. We got home and there was no box from Outlaw. I waited another week, and then got worried that maybe since nobody was home, it had either been stolen or had been returned to Outlaw. Sent mail to Scott and he said it hadn't shipped yet. Later, I got a call from Peter and he mentioned that the hardware was ready, but some software challenges were holding them back.

With everyone else I got the Outlaw mail in December saying that everyone on the reservation list was getting a PCA cable for their patience. I sent mail to Scott and said I was being patient waiting for my beta unit. He said we'd be getting the cables too. Cool!

Every time the Outlaws have mentioned a shipping date, I've calculated how long I would have to do the beta test. Obviously it's going to be short, so I decided to write up a test plan. I started with the list from the Favorite Demos saloon. Since the other Outlaws have these disks and are familiar with them, I thought my comments might make more sense if I used the same reference disks.

IT ARRIVES!

After weeks of waiting for the DHL truck to arrive, we got a call from Peter saying he had a unit and I could have it that night if I wanted. I drove over to his place, met him and his wife, and picked up my new charge. We plugged it in at Peter's house just to make sure it worked - but we didn't connect it to anything. While we were talking, the manufacturer in Malaysia called to discuss something. It sounded like they were many overseas calls happening at this late date.

I went home and started plugging things in. Around 11:00 that night, Peter called and asked how it was going. He said he somehow thought I might still be up playing with it. At that point I was mostly connected, but I was having a problem with one of the rear speakers not working. Turns out it was my fault - one of the wires had come undone when I was moving things around on my equipment shelf.

MY UNREMARKABLE SYSTEM

List price on this setup was around $16.5k. I think it's a great system!

Sony DVP-S7700 DVD player
Sony VCR
Pioneer CD changer (not used for this test - I prefer the sound from the DVD player.)
Mitsubishi VS-7083 70" RPTV

Main Speakers: Snell C/IV (34-33kHz) - biwired with Monster Original, powered by an AudioSource AmpThree at 2x150 watts.

Center Speaker: Snell HCC-1800 (80-20kHz) Monster Original, powered by one channel of AudioSource AmpThree at 150 watts (My goal is to eventually power the front three speakers with a Bryston 6B-ST amplifier. Snell told me they used Bryston 4B-NRB as their reference amp when designing the C/IV's, and Bryston told me they used to have some Snells in their listening room, so I expect this to be a great combination.)

Surround Speakers: Snell J/III (48-20kHz) 14 gauge generic in-wall speaker wire, powered by my old Yamaha RX-V1070 receiver's main pre-outs at 2x110 watts..

Rear Center: Boston Acoustics HD-7 - temporarily used as center surround for some 6-channel testing, with generic 16 gauge speaker wire, powered by the other channel of the AmpThree at 150 watts.

Subwoofer: M&K MX-100 subwoofer (18-125Hz, 200 watt, 2x12") - with a custom-made interconnect
Salamander rack and Salamander amp stand
Power - dedicated 15 amp circuit for audio equipment. Intermatic whole-house surge suppressor wired in at the circuit box.
Room - 17' wide, 19' long, tall 18' ceiling. Soft carpeting and couches, no drapes.

TESTING PROCEDURES

Sorry, no single or double-blind testing. I set up each test and then switched back and forth. Sometimes my wife listened with me, sometimes not.

I always let the whole system warm up for an hour before doing any critical listening. I don't know that it really improves the sound noticeably, but I'm sure it doesn't hurt.

At times I used the Avia test disk and Radio Shack SPL meter (slow mode, C weighting). 0dB on the 950 volume scale was dead-on at 85 dB. This is actually much louder than we typicially listen to music or movies, so I did most of the tests around -30dB.

(to be continued...)

Congrats, Jeff! I look forward to the rest of your report.

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

Does Outlaw allow its beta testers to discuss beta testing in a public forum? If so it is very unusual. Usually beta testers are required to sign an NDA and breach of it is pretty serious.

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Nigel Pond
SMR Home Theatre
SMR Forums
SMR Group
HighFidelityReview

BETA UNIT 2

My unit is identified with stickers on the back as:
PrePro #2 12/31/01
SW 2.0 DSPV17 1/28/02

Peter told me that a number of additional software changes were made after my unit was built. That doesn't surprise me, since nearly everything that I eventually reported as a bug they told me had already been fixed. In one case, Peter copied me on mail between Outlaw and the manufacturer discussing changes to the S-Video circuitry - and the mail included a full-screen photo of the board in question.

FM PERFORMANCE

Originally, I had hoped that the 950 would not have a built-in tuner, since I wanted to buy my own. Then when I learned that Outlaw was including one, I hoped that it would have RDS (Radio Data Service) like the European 1050 has. Nope. Just a standard AM/FM tuner.

Unfortunately, my beta unit had a faulty tuner in it and Peter told me not do any listening tests with it.

I was able to tune in stations, but couldn't do any critical listening. I also didn't have the right remote, so I couldn't easily move through the presets. The 950 doesn't have a signal-strength meter, so I couldn't really compare its sensitivity to the Yamaha's. I'll trust the specs when they come out.

One nice feature is that you can use the FM Mode button to switch to mono if the reception is noisy, and then you can store the station as stereo or mono.

Rats - my notes don't say how many presets there are.... I think it was 32 total, divided however you want between AM and FM.

ZONE 2 USABILITY

We built our house almost three years ago and I took advantage of the open walls to run 1500' of 14 gauge speaker wire throughout the house. Some rooms got speaker jacks, and others have in-wall or in-ceiling speakers. All the speaker wiring goes to an 8-way distribution box in the basement.

In my setup, each room has its own volume control. As such, I don't want to change the volume at the source. I want to set it to a maximum level, and then attenuate the volume locally using the in-wall controls.

The main point to having a Zone 2 is so that it can play another source than what's on in the primary zone. In my old system, I first ran off the B speaker connections - so the whole house listened to the same thing. Then I got a separate amp and fed it the output from the Record-Out jacks. This was much better, although you still had to power up the receiver and turn down the volume of the Zone 1 speakers.

With the 950, I connected my amps to the proper Zone 2 outputs. I immediately ran into a problem because there was no volume. I rechecked my connections and then gradually raised the Zone 2 volume until it sounded right. Hmm, 0dB in Zone 2 equals -30db in Zone 1??? It turns out that the impedence-matching circuit in my distribution box was cutting the power. When I wired up Zone 2 output to my main speakers, I saw that the 950 was working as it should.

One interesting thing is that if you are using Zone 2, and then turn off the 950, Zone 2 still works. When I say "turn off" I really mean to put the unit into standby mode by pressing the front power button or by pressing "Off" on the remote. To turn off Zone 2, you have to use the menu system (either on-screen or front-panel.)

REMOTE CONTROL

The official remote wasn't ready, so I have a remote that someone has programmed specifically for this beta test. Little paper labels indicate the buttons they remapped.

I read that the real remote is based on Home Theater Master SL-9000. This remote is available online for around $90 and seems to get good reviews.

So, I couldn't test the macros, range, or learning capabilities. Bummer.

On the remote they gave me, you turn the 950 on by pressing the input you want to use. Press "DVD" and the 950 turns on and selects the DVD input, with the surround mode you last used and with the volume you last used.

Check the newsletter; the testers have been released from their NDA as apparently the official beta testing is complete.


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

Nigel,

Outlaw Audio officially released the beta testers from their NDA last night. Interesting enough ... right after I posted the newsletter everywhere I could think of!



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pat----

email: pat@sklenar.info ---===--- home page: Grumpy's Lair

Hey Nigel - I was bound by a non-disclosure agreement until Peter called me last night. He said that Robert Fowkes over in the Home Theater Forum was going to be the first to post something, and after that I was free to give my impressions.

I think tester #4 just received a unit Sunday or Monday of this week, so I wouldn't expect anything from him/her just yet.


GENERAL COMMENTS

- no switched outlets
My AudioSource amps have an auto-on/off function, but no 12v triggers. I found that if the volume is too low, the amps shut themselves off. Oh well. I guess that's what they're supposed to do.

I don't want to leave them on all the time, so I'm going to have to get a switched power strip.

- pseudo analog test
My Sony DVP-S7700 DVD player has both analog and digital (coaxial) outputs. I connected both to the 950 for testing. I told the 950 that DVD input was on Coaxial 1, and that CD input was Analog. Then I used the remote to switch back and forth. Neither my wife nor I could hear any difference between these.

I'll have to buy a phono preamp so I can test a real analog signal. I haven't listened to a record in at least five years, so it wasn't a priority to me.

- display readability
I like the two-line display. It is easily readable from 10' across the room. I miss the LED on the volume control like my Yamaha had, but I understand the advantage of this type. The volume control is linear, so it's easy to set any exact volume level you want. With my Yamaha, I could only use part of the dial - from 7:00 up to 11:00 or so.

I think everything in the on-screen display is mirrored on the front panel. That's important if you don't want the 950 to do any video switching for you.

The display can be dimmed by 50%, which looks better to me, even in daylight.

- documentation
I'm a tech writer, so unlike most people I like to RTFM before installing something. But obviously I was able to set up the system without a manual.

Because Peter had told me I wouldn't get a manual, I printed the one from the 1050, thinking it would help if I got into trouble. I forgot that I had it, and never used it.

I found a few things that I thought were bugs, but that turned out to be features. I suggested that these would be good to mention in the manual.

- logo/button
Didn't Ben Franklin say, "in the dark, all audio components are grey?" The logo isn't as big as I thought it would be. I really got so involved with the awesome performance of the unit that the logo (and the whole equipment rack) became invisible.

And here's something - my beta unit actually has a BLACK button! (I wonder if I could swap it when I get my production unit??)

- noise level
Initially, I had a problem with hum, but it went away when I put cheater plugs on the AudionSource amps to bypass the ground connection. Two plugs at 99 cents from the local hardware store and the hum totally disappeared.

I'll do a test tonight for crosstalk and will report back tomorrow...


- headphone
As we saw in the alpha pictures, there's no headphone jack. The wife and I both have Sennheiser HD-580's that we use at work, so we are fond of good headphone sound. But why bother in the home theater room when we have the full speaker setup?

I think that people going with separates are expected to buy a separate headphone amp. Even the lo-fi cordless headphones we gave my father a few years ago need line-level outputs.

There's no Dolby Headphone processing.

- DSPs and tone controls

Last year, I voted to keep the the DSPs. I used to use the Jazz Club setting on my Yamaha once in a while. Oh well.

You can adjust the Bass and Treble by... rats, forgot to write it down... something like +/- 6 dB.

There's no balance control, but you can raise or lower each speaker's relative volume.

- naming inputs and associating surround modes with them
In college, I had a JVC receiver that called the CD input "DAD," for Digital Audio Disk. On my Yamaha, I had to connect the DVD player to "Tape2/VCR 2." On my Mitsubishi TV, the cable signal displays on the screen as "Antenna A." And, before I got an external amp (connected to "Tape 1 Out"), when we listened to anything in Zone 2 we had to remember to turn off the surround modes, because there was no center channel. This all lead to low SAF when I had to explain multiple mappings and steps to watch a movie.

With the 950, I want to select "DVD" and have it automatically use the proper surround mode. Yes! It works. Each input can have a different processing applied to it, and this is remembered when you turn the unit off.

What can't it do? I can't rename the inputs. So I can't change Video 1 to Game, Video 2 to Baby Monitor, etc.

- video quality
Unfortunately, my beta unit had a problem with the S-Video output. I considered this my first big find during beta, only to find out that manufacturing had already discovered the hardware problem and corrected it, but hadn't told Outlaw yet. Scott couldn't reproduce the problem, so obviously it has been fixed in later units.

- bass management
The 950 offers a hard-set analog bass management option for folks using the 5.1 analog inputs. I don't have DVD-A or SACD, so I couldn't test this yet. 80 Hz seems like a good compromise point, although it wouldn't be ideal for me.

I *really* like the triple crossover! My surround speakers are rated down to 48Hz, which was overkill for Dolby Pro Logic with its limited bandwidth of 100Hz- 7kHz. Now I have set a crossover for them at 60 Hz. I also used this feature to set my center to 80 Hz, and my mains to 40 Hz.The sub obviously gets everything below those crossover points.

An interesting feature (that I initially thought was a bug) is that if you set your speaker to "large", you can still set a crossover. In this case, the bass below the crossover point is still sent to the sub, but it isn't removed from the primary speaker.

You can also turn the sub off if you have all large, full-range speakers. If you do that, I don't know if it re-integrates the .1 signal back into the speakers...? Someone else will have to test that, or we have to wait for the manual. My big Snells go pretty low (rated for 34dB), but not down into sub territory.

The triple crossover works amazingly well. Each channel now seems more complete than ever before. Running through the test sweeps on the Avia disk really shows how seamless the crossover is. Wow! This feature sold me on the product.

- future proof?
Compared to the price of upgrades on some processors, you could buy this, wait a couple of years, then buy the high-end Outlaw processor and give this one away. I think you'd still end up ahead.

With the 950 in place, the processor is no longer the weakest link in my system. Looking at my own upgrade path, I want the Bryston 6B-ST I've been pining for, then a satellite dish to replace our lousy cable service, and then a new HDTV. After that, I'll need a DVD player with progressive-scan output and either SACD or DVD-A. The 950 can handle any of those upgrades. I was glad to read in the forum that the 950's component switching could handle HDTV signals.

Downloadable upgrades would have been nice, but they did say they could put out fixes on a new eprom. That's better than what I have now!

The 950 is future-proof if the future is defined as only 5-10 years away.

- SAF

My wife and I were friends for almost a year before we started dating. One of the first things we did as friends was to go shopping for some real speakers to replace her college setup. She ended up with Definitive Technology BP8's, which she later upgraded to BP10's, and then to the BP30's we have now. She loves that bipolar sound where I prefer my more precise Snells. The point is, she's got good ears, but they are different than
mine.

Her take on this new piece is that of course the new surround modes are great. But listening to straight stereo, she hasn't really listened enough to notice much difference. Because of the nest of wires, it's difficult to compare the old and new setups since I couldn't immediately switch back and forth. The old setup sounded great, and the new one still sounds great. Continued listening will probably improve her impressions as we notice new things in our favorite songs.

One very important thing about getting the 950 is that we can finally move the Yamaha upstairs to replace a Sony receiver that died a year ago. The upstairs "zone 3," where the BP30's are, has been music-less for a year. Being able to do this will improve our overall enjoyment level more than getting DD and DTS down in the home theater.

more later...

Jeff

Great stuff - keep it coming!

>- noise level
Initially, I had a problem with hum, but it went away when I put cheater plugs on the AudionSource amps to bypass the ground connection. Two plugs at 99 cents from the local hardware store and the hum totally disappeared.<

You should be very careful when mucking around with ground connections -- they are there for a reason. Rather than resorting to cheater plugs, wouldn't you be better of trying to track down the source of the hum? -- in my experience it's usually related to cable TV grounding: http://smr-home-theatre.org/Ground-Loops/



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Nigel Pond
SMR Home Theatre
SMR Forums
SMR Group
HighFidelityReview

Thanks, Nigel. I will revisit out the grounding situation later. I was just in a hurry to get it working. I didn't know how long the beta would last and I needed to get started right away.

TEST DISKS AND OPINIONS
I've been busy cueing up scenes from our DVD library, playing everything from Jurassic Park to that free Kenwood sample disk. I even have a bunch of disks still in the shrink wrap, because I've been waiting for the 950 to play them. I can finally unwrap my Jaws (dts version) disk!

The 950 has a theater re-equalization feature that is supposed to do the same thing as THX - but different enough so they don't have to pay royalties or worry about getting sued. I didn't play with it much. I turned it on, noticed that things sounded a little flatter, and didn't try it again. I also tried the night-mode compression settings, just to make sure they were working.

Every movie I played sounded better than it ever has before. Now, I know that comparing DD or DTS to a ProLogic system is going to give you a predictable result. At times it was hard for me to say what made the experience so much better - the software or the hardware. Remember that Outlaw didn't invent their own DD or DD-EX decoding - they get that software and those algorithms direct from Dolby. With the 950, everything sounded like it was supposed to, so I'd have to say everything was decoded flawlessly.

And that's what I expect a great pre-pro to do - decode the soundtracks correctly and don't add any junk!


CONCLUSIONS

Will I buy this unit? No. But that's a trick question - Outlaw is offering us new production units at a special price. They don't want these not-perfect units to still be floating around after the test.

Will I buy the new unit? YES!

You often hear reviewers talking about the coloration of a component - is it warm, cool, forward, etc? Well, to sum it up, it just sounds better.

Better because:
- I hear more details in the music and movies
- the sub is better integrated with the other speakers
- the DD and DTS processing is amazing compared with my ProLogic system
- ProLogic II is magic - by adjusting the parameters, you can make the system sound more forward or laid back, and you can widen or shrink the center stage

So I would say the 950 doesn't have any sonic characteristics, but it makes the rest of my system sound better.

One anecdote to share - during testing I was playing a test sweep from the Avia DVD and I turned it up a bit too loud (probably close to "reference level." When it got down around 23 Hz, the screens in our windows started vibrating in a really cool wave format. It looked like the ripple effect when you throw a rock in a pond. My wife was at the opposite end of the house and up on the second floor - she said the whole house was shaking. Later I found cracks in the plaster on two walls in room next to the home theater. Whoa!

What adjustments are available for time delay on the various channels? Also, are the time delays available in all modes?

Is the manual PDF up yet?

Charlie