The bottom line is, that know one will know what this unit is going to sound like with or without balanced outs until they try it in there own systems with there own electronics and room acoustics involved.

I found many years ago, that for me to purchase a piece of audio equipment based on others reviews, opinions, and specs was utterly foolish. One needs to remember that each reviewer uses different electronics, cables, room acoustics etc... not to mention ears, than what you are probably going to be using. Also, what’s one mans junk is another’s treasure. This surely holds true in the audiophile world. My theory has been to check the quality of the internal parts etc... and then to fully audition the piece in my own system. If it pleases my ears, I could care less about another’s review or the pros and cons of things like balanced and unbalanced outputs. While reading and learning about these things is interesting and thought provoking. The bottom line for me is how a piece sounds and performs for me, period. When one uses there ears as the final word regarding an audio purchase, they most likely will always be happy with it for as long as they own it. Also, on another note one needs to take into account the cost factor, and compare apples to apples, within a given price range. I believe that the only competition in the 990’s price range would be receivers. I have spent far more $'s on a pre pro. Even the very first units put out by Jim Fosgate in the early 90’s were much more expensive. In fact my very first pre pro was a Fosgate 4 and it set me back $2,500. over ten years ago, go figure. $1,100 sounds very inexpensive for a pre pro to me.

Just My .02 cents worth,

I too am looking at the Anthem AVM30 but can't wait to see the specs and manual on this.

Great timing Scott!

BTW, I will be using XLR cables for balanced connections to my Carver ZR series digital amps. Quite a debate going on here about that. No problem; to each his own. Great article here:

http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/audioprinciples/interconnects/Balancedvsunbalanced.php

Very well said, I couldn't agree more. It's a good point about associated equipment often overlooked and sometimes these differences can be major. After a while reading reviews I started to realize how important it would be to read the associated equipment list. It will tell you a lot about the reviewer. Many times, I will read the list and see what I would consider many limiting factors that would make me question the reviewers results. Like reviewing a universal player with basically a home theater in a box system etc. Of course, it's all about the equipment that YOU like listening to but someones findings with a HTIB is not applicable to my experience.

JHUNT, please tell me what you thought of the Fosgate 4. It was a very highly regarded unit. I use a Citation 7.0 which was related to that unit is ways I understand. I love it and in my opinion, paired with a quality SACD/CD player, it's spoiled me for getting analog surround out of a 2-channel source. I've auditioned many pre/pros and I just can't hear any that sound better. Some sound as good, but not enough to make me pay more for them.

Still, I will be interested in the 990. I may get one to demo. It would simplify my system a lot.

The pony... the pony... how many pages did we fill about the pony? I'd forgotten all about that! Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Audioholic.

If your amplifer uses an XLR that is wired as an unbalanced input with pin 2 hot and pins 1 and 3
grounded will you get any kind of benefit connected to the 990?

I guess we won't be recreating the great outlaw logo debate of 2002 this time huh??? Darn! well don't care I'm keeping my unbalanced 750 (with original classic logo and nostalgic green button) and the pony of course stays .. but 950 my old friend, well, parting will be sweet sorrow (sniff).

and now for a poem:

one fish
two fish
red dot
blue dot

thats as far as I got.

No. The XLR input on the amp is then there for cosmetic purposes only since you lose the benefit right afterwards.

As an example, the new ATI and Theta Dreadnaught amps are fully differential balanced from input until it has to go the the +/- speaker terminals. There's where you get your benefit of low noise and no ground loops.

The Dreadnaught is zero feedback too.

What Outlaw should have done in their design phase is see the writing on the wall and put in the latest HDMI inputs and outputs for audio and video and had the firmware controller for it software upgradeable in case the spec. changed somewhat. That's what Integra did for their ever upgradeable pre-amp.

If there is a way to add these new high resolution, lossless and uncompressed audio features to the processor, you still would need HDMI with the latest encryption standards to carry the audio bitstreams to the pre-amp. I doubt Hollywood will allow any other way.

Maybe the regular legacy codecs like standard Dolby Digital and DTS and stereo PCM will be allowed to travel through coaxial and toslink outputs (since this is the most these limited bandwidth connections can handle), but the reason to move to HD-DVD and/or Blu-Ray is also for the better audiophile grade audio too, not lossy audio (which is just there for backwards compatibility).

There are a whole slew of new receivers and pre-amps coming out soon that include HDMI in some form or another (and many are adding enough extra horsepower to add these new formats via software). That's one reason the 990 is "sucking hind tit" before it's even been released. I don't know why DTS and Dolby (besides reps from the Blu-Ray camp and DVD Forum) weren't in communication to let them know what was approved and what was not, so they could be ready. Maybe something broke down during all this.

I'd love to support Outlaw by buying another one of their products, but these high res. disc formats have me on a holding pattern.

Dan

Does anyone know if the analog bass management is for all 7.1 channels?

And can you apply the auto correction--speaker size and distance--in the analog domain?

"Does anyone know if the analog bass management is for all 7.1 channels?"

Does anyone know for sure that the 990 actually has analog bass management support on the "direct" inputs?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by texaspledge:

JHUNT, please tell me what you thought of the Fosgate 4.

I personally thoroughly enjoyed the Fosgate piece right up until the time we parted ways, and I received my citation 7. I as well find the 7 very enjoyable, but I will be replacing it soon for functionality reasons. I have auditioned the Sherwood P-965 and found it to sound overly edgy in my system. I did like the ease of use and set up of the Sherwood though, and the Sherwood is built to last with quality internals galore. I have auditioned the Dennon 3805 in my system as well, and did not care for it at all. To shorten this post I will say that I have auditioned four other pieces at higher price points then the fore mentioned, and I am looking forward to auditioning the new Outlaw pre pro in my system. After the Outlaw review, I will compile all my notes, and make a decision on a pre pro for my system, and my listening pleasure.