As I've long said, the tuner is a nice FREE addition for those who might use it. In the meantime, it is also a very nice re-sale item.

In my testing, it was not the sonic equal to the Parasound TDQ-1600, a Stereophile recommended component, but, instead, it was wholly wonderful and was indestinguishable from other lesser stamd alone tuners that I tried.

Okay,,, so far?


[This message has been edited by merc (edited February 19, 2003).]

I am also new (about 4 weeks) mine replaced an Adcom 955II pre amp/Technics ac500d dd/dts processor, and WOW the sound is phenomenal! and I also love the stereo bypass (was my only concern) the FM radio is nice but the AM
probably needs an antenna (my SAE tuner was better in this field).
I hooked up to an Adcom GFA6000 amp and the front to Mackie's powered speakers.JBL center,
Surrounds are cheaper RCA (4), but later I plan to upgrade.

Nice thought, but in reality nothing is free, of course. If that budget and real estate could have been used to develop per mode or per input level settings, or add trims that are not tha same as the cal settings, or something else, how would you feel about the tuner? Are you sure there's nothing reasonable you'd trade that tuner for?

That's my feeling; It adds virtually nothing (for me) and had to cost something. In the future if features have to be weighed I'd urge Outlaw to give the tuner less weight. If it comes down to a time where the budget is available and all other features are in, then OK, otherwise drop it.

wow, some good comments! i have only had my 950 for a month now...and i've been away for 2 weeks of that. audio wise i just can't fault it and my previous pre is a really nice ARC that costs several times the 950 price ... and is 2 channel. (i still had psuedo surround w/ a homemade blackbox to the surrounds) prior to that a solid state adcom 450 which has a tuner. i gotta say...the 950 kicked its butt. with both units i use a small,indoor powered antennia with adjustable gain;with the adcom i used to have to adjust for the non-profit blues, jazz,college,& PBS stations. i also live a mile from the base of stone mountain...a bugger of mho factures (i used ta work on the PBS transmitter up there,also) reflections..refractions...strange burbels..they are all caused by this strange piece of granite here..and the echoing of signal through the low valley that travels over ten miles and hits...the skycrapers of hotlanta. but the 950...i set the ant. gain at mid-point...and that was that..i now have several more stations coming in than before...at least now they are listenable. what gets me is...my sony portable cd/tuner gets half of this ...with no anten. a tall.

cont. : i do have one caveat, however, that i keep forgetting about. volumne level.
i can max out the 950 without stressing my main amp...really really loud at this point. my previous ARC MK11 (valve output) had so mch more gain. the 950, at max,drives the system at at about the same level as the ARC when it was at one o'clock. turning the ARC past 'one' is ... incredible SPL...but the 1.6's just played bigger and bigger..granted i had ta put dual ultra quiet fans into the chassis of the overture dual mono-blocks...these things will put 4 to 600 clean clean watts into 4 ohms!...cause the overture would heat up and...shut down. but, hey...i'm soundproofed here...and in the middle of 2 acres of land to aid that. the only thing now that i can turn up to those levels...is the turntable..cause it's stepped up by the ...tah dah...ARC ... so i have complete gain control before it hits the 950. and yes, i worried the 950 couldn't handle that level of input...but it do and that's true.
of course..i have set the system at 0 db so i can raise the over all level...my spl meter wuz run over by ...o christ that's another story. when i get a new one i'll calibrate the 950 settings for correct level setup. adum: the maggies are medium efficiency transducers so i know i need at least 3 more db added to the 'speaker set-up'. having said all that...i hope you all (ok...youse guys) enjoy what the 950 does at a price i didn't think would be possible (and i'm an engineer....i may not look like one ... but i do play one on TV)

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t higg

I'm enjoying my 950 (still) - no problems to report. I do have a somewhat wierd gain structure though. My "line level" for full scale digital (on CDs) is +15db that goes to my power amps. I have a vaccum tube preamp/booster amp after the 950 that provides the extra gain. I do this for a lot of technical and very boring reasons, mostly having to do with matching levels with pro equipment, and noise immunity.

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The Soundhound Theater