As of yesterday I am now an owner of the 950 pre/pro. I have to tell you I was very sceptical of the performance this could deliver. I found it to exceed my expectations and the performance of my Adcom GTP600 and Marantz DP870 (off-board processor). Sonically the music and Dolby Digital were both more detailed and crisp.
The sub signals are more detailed and
crisp. I believe I have more highs and lows now.
The Stereo mode was even better and I have more volume on all settings. The CD analog input is the loudest at -27db for comfortable listening.

I found the remote to be lacking some buttons
needed to be a universal remote for my use.
The display could be larger, I can't read it across the room (13'), maybe just old age.

I will set up my RC5000 remote to control this pre/pro.

Now for the losses..
The tuner does not pull in all the stations that the Adcom could pull in.

I'll miss my two switched and 1 unswitched 115V outlets on my old pre/pro.


Equipment used in this system:
Paradigm Eclipse bi-polar fronts bi-amped to
Adcom 5800 each.
Polk Audio CS1000 center speaker.
Paradigm ADP-170 side surrounds.
Paradigm mini monitors back surrounds.
Adcom 5 channel amp for center and surrounds.
Subs: Kilpsch SWII and a Polk SW-650.

So far this seems to be a great bang for the buck. I would highly recommend this unit to anyone. :-)
JT

welcome to the Outlaw family!

Personally I'd like to see future pre/pros drop the tuner completely; Those who want it probably want a good one, maybe even already have one, and the rest of us never use it.

I'm reasonably happy with my 1050, I think I'll wait a bit before I leap, maybe see if the 950 big brother is more to my liking.

Glad your enjoying yours - seems to be a great value, as well as an excellent product.

The tuner in my 950 was better than I expected! A tuner needs balance between sensitivity and sound quality. Only very high end, expensive tuners do both well. The 950 is fairly sensitive, but gives up really high sensitivity in exchange for fantastic sound with strong stations. (in my opinion...and I listen to a fair amount of radio). Magazines have listed the 950 as being terrible at AM, but I have found it more than acceptable for listening to distant sporting events and talk radio. Of course I turn off the TV and all flourescent lights when listening to AM and I have a straight wire antenna in the attic. (I also have a 100 mile FM antenna in the attic).

Yes, a $100 DX AM radio will pull in AM better...but that is 1/9 of the price of the 950. Even a cheap FM tuner is another $150, and the remote control is another $75...A cheap AM/FM tuner and the remote would cost over 1/4 the price of the entire package, so I don't complain. In fact, I praise highly!

I was actually surprised at the performance of the tuner in my 950. I have a very good Phase Linear tuner, and the one in the 950 pulled in as many stations, and with comparable sound quality.

I do agree however that the days of the tuner are (or should be) numbered. Radio is bound to go the digital route in the future. Frankly, I was surprised that the 950 had one at all, and wouldn't have missed it. I would rather have had a better remote

I prefer using the 950 in stereo mode, for critical listening. For FM however, the DTS NEO and DPL modes are great!

Incidentally I'm glad that the 950 has a tuner! One reason I decided to get the 950 instead of the Rotel pre/pro was because the 950 has a tuner and the Rotel does not. I really enjoy listening in the background to FM and even to AM sometimes.

However, I was disappointed by the 950's AM tuner. There's way too much static on stations that come in clearly on my previous AM tuner. I like to listen to AM for news and games, so the sound quality doesn't have to be great. But I wish the 950 didn't have so much AM static.

Mine has very very little static in AM. Will, have you tried a straight wire antenna in the attic and shutting off all lights that are not incandescent?

I'll be honest, I wasn't too happy with the presence of the tuner at first either. (I have a Nakamichi ST-7.) But, after playing around with the FM antenna, I can get all the stations I need. (The tricky one is a low power college radio station I listen to.) The Nak is a better tuner, but the Outlaw's is "good" enough. Saves me a rack space, and AC outlet, ...

I'm using the supplied indoor AM antenna, like I used with the tuner in my previous receiver, only with the receiver, I didn't get this much static. The static is about the same no matter if I use the indoor antenna supplied with the 950, versus the indoor antenna I used previously.

I haven't tried a straight wire antenna in the attic. But I tried turning off all lights in the room, which didn't fix the problem in my case.

[This message has been edited by Will (edited February 14, 2003).]

I'm a new owner too. I received my 950 a few days ago. Unfortunately the unit was DOA, which was fairly disappointing - BUT: I called Outlaw support at around 1:00PM PST and they told me they'd send a new unit. IT ARRIVED THE NEXT DAY! I am impressed! They're so fast, they didn't even leave me enough time to get upset :-)

The new unit works great and I'm very happy with how it sounds - definitely no need to spend 2 or 3 times more. I had my doubts about buying directly thru the Internet but I have to say price/performance ratio is outstanding and I can't complain about customer support. Besides, I didn't have to put up with sales guys trying to feed me a load of BS. Can I ask for more?

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Toys! Toys! Toys!

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