I went to my local av dealer this evening to scope out his Rotel amps prior to my anticipated ordering of a 950. When I quite frankly told him I had just about made up my mind to get an Outlaw his eyes lit up, and then he quickly ushered me over to what he referred to as the newest addition to his offerings. You guessed it sports fans; the AT P2000.

Boy it sure does looked sweet with its titanium brushed aluminum exterior. He went on to inform me that although its shared the same platform and feature set as the Outlaw that it was definitely a higher quality version i.e. made from more select circuits, capacitors etc. than Outlaw could afford to put in theirs and still meet their price point. Kinda reminded me of the way he once contrasted Pioneer Elites to Pioneer's non-elites.

Well as soon as the words 1700 list came out of his mouth the titanium faceplate began losing its luster. I did however muse over some literature on the P2000 whilst he catered to one his high-roller customers interested in a Sunfire TGIII.

Heres where it gets interesting. I like this guy (owner of the store) he always spends alot of time with me answering multitudes of simple questions as I'm still pretty green in audiophile areas, but theres no way I am even gonna consider this thing at twice the price. He knows my budget is limited and knows I'm driving myself nuts these days trying to get the absolute most out of my upcoming investment. Well after somewhat lenghty debate over possible merits of AT over Outlaw I tell him there's no way its worth that much more to me. Then we talk amplifiers awhile. He cuts me a good deal on a Rotel RMB-1066. I'm thrilled thinkin: I'm gonna go home and order-up the 950 with
a set of PCAs and my decisions are over.

THEN he says how bout I offer you the AT for ****.00, you take it home and try it out and see if you like it. We're talkin a very good price here. He made me promise not to repeat the price lol. He told me that he almost always trys to offer a couple of pieces of his new stuff at great prices to good customers because he gets a lot of "word-of-mouth" sales in his business and it helps to get the ball rolling with newer relatively unknown gear.

Well I resisted the overwelming urge to take him up on his offer. I told him to call me when he had it set up (AT pre/a2000 had literally just arrived and he had yet to get a set integrated into a system for testing) and I'd give it a listen.

Is he B.S.ing me about about the differences between AT and Outlaw? I can't find anything in my research, so far, to substantiate his claims. I usually trust the guy's opinion as he's been in the biz 35 years and started out in the sound engineering end of things (so he says) even produces his own line of speakers and has always treated me fairly.

UUUHHHH, guess I'm back on the fence again. Too bad Soundhound does not live in my town. I'd take him up on his offer and we could A/B Outlaw to AT and end this debate.

Mike

If you could get it for say half the difference, $899 ($900) vs $1700, => $1300, geez, even now that I think about it, that's still a lot of mulah...

I don't know, but I think I'd be willing to bet, that sure, maybe the AT has all those upgraded, hand selected parts, but would you really hear any difference *in real world applications*? I have to (want to ) think not....

Wow,

Just got a look at the AT...man, I'm normally not one to gripe about looks but if Outlaw's 950 looked like that I probiably wouldn't be investing in a new sub as opposed to stashing it away for a 950/770.

Jason

I've read elsewhere that there is a difference in the component video bandwidth, that the more expensive AT and Sherbourne have better HDTV switching. The other "upgraded" circuits may be in place also, I have no idea. But if the price is competitive it may be worth a little more for such good customer service.

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Philip Hamm

There was a thread late last fall (currently eluding me) by someone who had actually heard an AT P2000 at a friend's house and been unable to tell a difference between it and the 950. Hardly a scientific or conclusive finding, but it does lend credence to the theory that differences between the 950 and the pricier clones are going to be subtle. Of course, subtle improvements often come at a steep price in this hobby...

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

The law of diminishing returns...

Although the case of subtle audio, slightly better video and much better looks are all contributory to a final choice.

There may be internal differences between the AT and the Outlaw pre/pro, but I wonder if those differences are smaller than the differences in the Outlaw 950 between the original model and the red dot and blue dot models.

The AT marketing people seem to be justifying the higher price of the AT pre/pro in part by saying higher quality parts are used on the AT pre/pro, even though the functions and features are supposedly identical between the AT pre/pro and the 950 pre/pro. Since the AT marketing people are saying the internal AT parts are higher quality, one might ask the marketing people to back the claim by telling us which internal parts are different, or by telling us some internal parts that are different. Or by telling us even one specific internal part that is different.


One reason some of us are curious about the internal differences between the two is that at last year's CES (year 2002), an AT P2000 prototype and an Outlaw 950 prototype were both cracked open and as I recall from the pictures, everyone thought they looked identical. Not on the outside mind you. But inside, when the boxes were cracked open, they really looked alike. We also heard at the time, that the functions and features are identical (right down to the same idiosyncracies). They didn't fix any of the 950's idiosyncracies when they built the AT pre/pro, or so we heard at the time. Don't know if that's still true today. And of course a lot has happened since those prototypes were shown. On the Outlaw side, we've gone from original 950 to red dot to blue dot 950. Probably some people have cracked open their 950 to look at it. Eventually some people will probably crack open their AT P2000 and try to see how it differs from an Outlaw 950 on the inside.

[This message has been edited by Will (edited January 30, 2003).]

I thought maybe I should add a little clarification. The claim of more "select" hardware on the inside was made by my local dealer. The basis for his observations was from looking at the insides of the unit(AT) at the latest trade show. He said that with his knowledge gained from having been repairing components for a long time that he could tell that AT's internal hardware was top-notch. He said that his decisions to carry the line were based on the high quality nature of its assembly.

AT's advice to dealers regarding concerns between their product and the lowered price Outlaws (which he allowed me to read) were pretty vague. I think they basically concluded by saying they were confident that people would be able to hear a difference.

If you go to the AT website, you can download the P2000 manual in adobe acrobat format. As near as I can tell, the AT P2000 manual is identical to the Outlaw 950 manual, except for the names of the units.