I apologize, but this will be all stream of conscience because I am at work and can't spend a ton of time on this right now. If you have questions, feel free to post them here and I will try to answer them. So I was one of the lucky three to bring a 990 home. I have it hooked to a 770 which I bought at the same time as well. I said I wasn't going to hook it up last night... Yeah we all know how long that lasted. I have it 90% done, I have some tweaking to do with my SACD player, but beyond that it is hooked up as a 5.1 system (room is too small for 7.1, but I am moving soon). My first impression is wow. I really like the sound from the unit. It is completly quite, putting my NAD T763 to shame. And the 990 doesn't have a hum. My only dislike so far is the navigation on the menu. But that is also a product of not having the manual yet. I think if I had it, it would be easier to locate the items I want to use. I have to do an auto setup tonight, I didn't do it last night because my neighbors would kill me. I like that the micropohone they give you has a tripod screw so I can really set it up at the right height. It's ability to make my HD cable box sound good is what really struck me. There has always been a bit of a hiss from it, whether with my NAD or my friends Denon. It sounds great. My only other issue is where to store the boxes in a NYC apartment.

Shawn

Congratulations on being one of the first three! I'm on the waiting list and I'm anxiously awaiting the email telling me it's ready.

Did they tell you when a manual would be ready?

Also, if you get a chance, I would be extremely grateful if you would be willing to measure the actual height of the unit. Another thread here said it was nearly 8", and the spec. listed on the site here says it's 7.75". Well, as it turns out, I have a bit more than 7.75" but a bit less than 8" of room for it in my stand, and I'd really like to know if it will fit before I commit to purchase it.

I suppose I could try to find a way to make room if I have to, but I'd prefer not to. I wonder if the feet can be removed and replaced with lower profile feet?

Thanks for any info.

Mark

I am one of the other lucky winners of the right to walk off with a 990 at the end of the HES. I was very happy to read SFOX's first impressions. The Outlaw demo was one of the best home cinema demo of the entire show and put to shame many systems that were way more expensive.

Being from Quebec,buying Outlaw always meant paying brokerage fees on top of shipping expenses and custom fees. Temporarily posted in New York, I wanted to buy the 950, have it delivered to my office and bring it back with me upon my return to Québec City. I had my credit card out when I visited the Outlaw site last Thursday to make my purchase only to discover the 950 was no longer available and that I had to put my name on the waiting list. Not having the luxury to wait for the 990 before my return to Québec, winning the purchase rights for one of the three HES demos was truly lucky. Especially since one of my remaining options was the T 163... I'll post my first impressions in about a month from now.

The manual will be sent to us by e-mail. It has gone through the revision process so, if Outlaw's printer knows his business, it should be ready within the next two weeks. I can't give you the exact height of the 990, the unit is still it its box. From what I remember, the feet seem to have a low profile, sorry.

By the way, the soon to be released integrated amp gave me a excellent impression.

Ah, excellent - feedback en route from two of the three lucky buyers! Looking forward to hearing from you guys. Thanks for keeping us in the loop.

Many attendees of the show seem to have felt that the 990 setup was the best sounding home theater offering there - including Tom Norton of UltimateAV .

Can't disagree with Tom Norton about Outlaw's performance at HES. They were the clear winners in HT. Even McIntosh seemed inferior(bass overwelming). Paradigm was O.K. but sound definition was lacking and the set up was of strastopheric pricing. Another HT company shared the 2nd floor corridor with Outlaw and Paradigm. It used short-skirted girls to entice people in. When a company resorts to such pratices, its a clue that something might be wrong. In this case, the picture was good, the sound eech. My personal take but I think shared by many other attendees. Funny note, Bösendorfer was demoing its magnificent speakers in the room next to Outlaw. Let's just say that the Outlaw demo stole the show many times despite the wall. Too bad for Bösendorfer who had among the best sounding high end speakers there.

I was hoping to hear the Anthem / Paradigm demo while at the show (it was only a few doors down from the Outlaw room). When I walked over there, they were willing to give me a ticket to come back in 3 hours to hear it. I didn't have the time to wait around for that. Did anyone get a chance to hear that demo and the Outlaw demo, your feedback would be interesting.

I'm hoping for a good 990/950 in-home comparison. But it's looking like we'll need to wait a few weeks for some of you on the wait list to receive your 990's before we get that.

Grok,
Looking at my picture of the 770 and 990, and my recollection, the 990 was at least as big as the 770 (I’m guessing that maybe the spec’d height of the 990 doesn’t include the feet?). I would think that you're going to need to rearrange your rack for the 990. Reading the 950 manual, the Outlaws suggest 2 to 3 inches of clearance for ventilation, so even if it does just fit, it would probably be good idea to get more space for the 990.

The 990 specs list the height at 7.75 inches. The 770 specs list the height at 7.75" with feet. Tinkering a bit with ScottH's picture makes me think the 990's height may include the feet as well, as in the picture the two look to be almost exactly the same height (in fact, the 770 is about 20 or 25 pixels higher, which amounts to about 2.5% taller assuming there's no perspective issues throwing us off). Based on that, I'd say the 7.75" number should be pretty accurate.

Gonk gave the link to Tom Norton's review on HT at HES. It gives a good impression on the whole.

Anthem/Paradigm gave a good performance but simply not good enough to beat Outlaw. Altought I was sitted in a excellent spot, sound effects were not as convincing with Anthem. Norton's wrote of «too much proeminence in the high-end» as the cause of their relative failure.

I'll say for Yamaha that the YSP-1 system sounded good but in a very small room. It is not a musical system. Music sounded needlessy bright. Two years from now, this type of system may appear in Walmart or Costco because it seems so easy to imitate cheaply.

A big disapointment came from Aperion. I went three times to their two rooms. Everytime, the sound was disapointing : too boomy, brittle treble. The listening rooms were always packed and that may have played a role. But I also had to ask three different representatives of the compagny in order to get the SPL sensitivity of the speakers before someone answered me vaguely «somewhere in the upper-80s». With the purchase of the 990, I now need 7 new speakers. Let's just say that I won't go for Aperion.

Front:

The other HT company on the same 2nd floor corridor had "short skirted girls to entice people in". Presumably, the Outlaws had Peter standing outside of their room to lure people in . Clearly, the choice was obvious.

Since I didn't attend the show, I'm afraid I'm going to have to see some pics of the "short-skirted girls" in order to form my own opinion as to which vendor had a superior exhibit!

in my humble opinion, the "short skirted girls" were much cuter than Peter! :rolleyes: Anyhow, they were hostesses in the Cinepro/Silicon Optix room. Cinepro's Demo was louder & something like three to four times more expensive than Outlaw's, as for better ... well, besides Outlaw, they were the only other demo I sat through where they explained up front I was going hear and what I should be trying to distignuish. Silicon Optix HQX demo was *very* impressive ... I want that chip in my display!

Just my two cents worth,

The new Outlaw 990 has an digital upsampling feature, so I am interested to learn how it performs on CD's relative to the Stereo Bypass Mode. I have a Panasonic DVD / DVD-A player (which upsamples CD's to 88.2 kHz/24bit before converting to analog output), and use the Outlaw 950 Stereo Bypass Mode for all two channel music listening. Bypass Mode is significantly better, which seems to imply that the Panasonic DAC's and/or circuits are superior to those in the 950.

Using the Outlaw 990 digital input would allow full use of the base management features, which would be a real advantage. So, if there are any Deperados, Gunslingers or Outlaws that have evaluated the digital upsample performance of the 990 relative to Bypass Mode, please share your observations. Thanks ...

Allan

I'll get on it Agassarsson, as soon as I get home with the unit, unfortunately, this is still a month away (an eternity). Maybe SFOX7076 will be able to give you indications sooner. For my part, I'll compare the 990 phono input to my Creek phono stage as well as test the digital upsampling relative to the bypass mode. I own three different CD players and two dvd players(I can't throw anything away), I think I'll be able to give you a few insights altough I am not an expert.

I will try my Arcam CD73T as a transport tonight. I will use the optical digital connection to do it. I have never really used digital coax because I always have had optical cables lying around. I will let you know. I know it upsamples all digital in the front two channels. The sound from my cable box on the HDTV show TrueMusic was intense compared to what my NAD T763 was. But the NAD is also garbage compared to this setup. Oh, and the name is Shawn...

Thanks TheFront and Shawn!
My wife is from Canada, and she worked at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC. Let me know if you are in town, and I will give you a tour... You can choose the sights, food, sound or the best Hockey bars in town. Some of the best NHL games I ever saw were between Les Nordiques de Québec and Montreal...

Allan

And the third winner is:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=535668

Congrats to the winners - got me pumped up even more to get the unit. Does Outlaw need help unloading the ship?

Sorry Shawn, I should've seen your signature at the bottom of the first message. I hope that the pressure to be the first in the world to give feedback on the new unit is not too much. I'm glad I did not have to break the ice.

If your NAD unit is garbage relative to your new 990/770 pairing, how will I describe my 1991 sagx-505 Technics receiver to my new Outlaw/Adcom setup ?

Playing your Arcam with 990/770 will surely sound like sonic heaven.

Hello Alan,

Thanks for the invite. I recently got a good dose of Washington and the Canadian Embassy because of my job. Didn't see the hockey bars but saw plenty of the Nationals, our former Expos. Good luck with your new team. For my part, I plan to drown my sorrows in music with my new 990...

I'll let you know how it works out.

Michel

Well, the arcam and the 990 are not that different sound wise. Which I think is a good thing. I must say I do like the arcam a bit more for vocals, but that may also be the arcam having been burned in for a month or more. I really cannot say there is a huge difference.

The pre-amp is 7 3/4 including the feet.

I listened to an HDCD, if any of you hoped that it would do HDCD, it doesn't, but that isn't surprising really. No one really uses it anymore. After further listening, here are my thoughts on it versus the Arcam. I had originalyl been listening to the Josh Ritter album "Golden Age of Radio" which has a kind of Alt-Country feel. It reproduced his voice in a way that was very similar to Arcam. However Josh doesn't get into the high register very much. Then I listened to a few other rock cds and noticed nothing out of the ordinary. I just put George Gershwin in the Arcam and I must say I am not conflicted as to what way to listen to the CD. I have to confess that the one disappointment I have had with the Arcam has been its ability to reporduce bass. The highs are so open and clean that it is hard not to feel like Tom Yorke is next to you when you listen to Radio, but it just doesn't get there when it needs to hit the lows. I listen to everything on tone defeat. Well, the Arcam is more open in the higher register. The flutes and piccalo's in Rhapsody in blue are more transparent to my ear from the arcam, but there is the Outlaw creates noticably more bass than the Arcam does. This is a Hobsons choice, or it was until I discovered the upsampling mode in analog. Finally, I need to have two disclaimers. The CD player retails for $699, it is one of the better CD players in that price range and has impressed me at every turn. And I have had the Outlaw in use for about 4 hours, plus I have the unit they actually used at the show, which was used for 2 days. It needs more time I am sure. As does the 770, which was only used at the show as well... Finally, in all of this, I forgot to tell you what speakers I have. Paradigm Studio 60 v.2's in the front, Studio 20 rears, a Studio Center v2 and Hsu VTF-2 as a subwoofer.

Thanks Shawn. That's good news for me because I also own a CD player that is somewhat bass deficient. I think the 770 was hardly used at the show if at all. Leave the radio on...

Yeah, I will leave it on all day tomorrow. I was able to fix the bass from the Arcam by bringing up the level on the two channel mode. The LFE level started as a -2 for 2 channel. Once I brought that up and tweaked the volume on the sub a bit, it was fine. I still think it needs a bit more of a burn in. It sounds great so far, but have never really evaluated audio equipment until I had used them for 20-40 hours. Paradigm speakers usually need about 100 hours...

Shawn

I've never understood this whole "burn-in" thing, at least for solid state equipment. Being an engineer, I find it hard to believe there are any significant changes occurring during a burn-in period that will result in any audible difference.

I can at least believe there might be a change with speakers, as they are electromechanical devices. It's conceivable they might change when played for a while after their manufacture. Given that there are adhesives, wood cabinets, finishes, etc., it certainly seems conceivable. Everything else I have to write off as people getting used to their new gear, not the gear itself changing.

Still, if you grow to like your gear over time after you get it home, that's not a bad thing. I do believe that it takes a while to get used to new audio equipment, and understand what you are now hearing as compared to your old gear. Really, though, that's *you* burning in, not the equipment.

The sound from the movie soundtrack is fine to my ears. I used Spiderman 2 as my movie and I am using a Pioneer 563-A. Actually, the dialogue seems really good to me. I will have to do more listening to DVD concerts in the end. I can say that the sound reproduction for instruments was so good during the movie, the soundtrack got disruptive at times. It appears that the component switching is better than what was in the NAD as well because I can see how bad the artifacting is.

Shawn

Being another Electrical Engineer I agree. Its an audiophile MYTH. Solid state electronics do not burn in. Electronics are designed not to vary and even if for some freakish uknown to science reason there was some type of change over time, why would it always change for the better? Not only does the mythological burn in change for the better, but it actually STOPS by itself when the sound gets pefect and does not burn in any further and ruin the sound. So apparently we engineers built tiny little braces that allowed our magic expanding circuit traces to expand but only to the point where the number of electrons passing was ideal and no further. I agree, speakers could vary since there are materials that would eventally warp or change over time. But then again, why always for the better, and why not past the point of better to worse?? Definitely EAR BURN IN is what we are talking about.

Oh My God! Soundhound has been cloned.

Elikd, I agree with You.

And Cloned again. As another EE, I move we pass the motion. Solid State Electronics do not "Burn in"

All in favor?

Aye.

-Another EE.

Cloned again. As another EE, I move we pass the motion. Solid State Electronics do not "Burn in"

As a math major, I agree...err...wait a minute, what's math got to do with it?

It may have more to do with Sun spots than burn in.. No pun intended..

Maybe you guys were sleeping in class the day they talked about capacitor "forming" and dielectric migration.
Just so you don't misunderstand my position, I don't follow the Mystic Audio Snake Oil Voodoo garbage out there but I also am not so closed minded as to dismiss what others purport to hear. Especially without experiencing the same event. That's just plain stubborn. And that's not how science advances. As engineers you should know that. When I find something that challenges my belief system I want to explore it further, not dismiss it out of hand simply because it doesn't fit the template.
Oh, and by the way, I agree that most of the differences one hears as a new component "burns in" is an adjustment period experienced by the listener. I think the listener gradually calibrates his/her expectations of what it should sound like and compensates accordingly. The ear/brain is an amazing thing.

Another engineer here

Speaker cables don't burn in either :p

Or it could be $ vs the brains ability to deny a bad purchase that makes it sound better. But whatever the case, it does.

All I know is my last (smaller) HT using the 1050 sounded better than any HT I have heard since, anywhere, period. It had something to do with the extrodinary luck I had selecting the peices that just folded together like silk and I miss it.

Sometimes you just have to enjoy the movie and not analyse the sound to death...

Well, as yet another EE, I'll weigh in.

I used to believe that was no such thing as burn in until a couple of weeks ago when I upgraded all of the capacitors and resistors in my main speaker crossovers.

I'm using Polk Audio SDA SRS's. The "SDA" stands for Stereo Dimensional Array which just means that they eliminate interaural crosstalk. Half of the drivers on the right speaker are driven from the left speaker (there is an interconnecting cable) and out of phase as to cancel what your right ear hears coming from the left speaker. Same deal with the left speaker. The purpose is to widen the soundstage and add depth (think headphone-like sound from your speakers). It works. Well, it did, until I upgraded the crossovers, after which the effect was noticably diminished. After about 10 hours of play, it started coming back. I attribute this to the capacitors in the crossovers burning in. I never would have expected it, but there it is.

I still don't believe in speaker or interconnect cables needing burn in, or solid state devices, but there's something going on with those capacitors...

Cary

To burn or not to burn. Well I must admit that I've never truly been in a position to need to burn in my audio quipment. Most of the audio gear I ever bought was either second hand or demo (my other passions are also very expensive). But to hear the many salespeople who pretend that it exists, to read the numerous commentators who talk of it with conviction, and to see the claims of wire peddlers about the gadgets they add to their interconnects or speaker cables in order to eliminate the need for burning in the cables, one may be excused for thinking it is a real phenomena.

Hey guys I got a great business idea. I will buy all the used 950's that will end up on Audiogon very soon and repackage them as pre-burned in equipment! The older the preamp, the more I will charge, like fine wine... Example: Here is our deluxe pre-burned in 950, it has been "burning in" for years and has just now reached its peak potential for sonic quality. It can be yours for a mere 3K! Of course you could buy a newfangled 990, but then you would have to wait quite a while before it sounded like our exquisitely aged 950's! I could start a whole new paradigm: Older audio equipment is worth more and is better than new!! Any takers???

You just gave me the weirdest mental picture, elikd: an "electronics cellar" with rack after rack of processors, amps, and DVD players all hooked up with fancy cables and powered up continuously so they age nicely. The shelves even tip slightly back to keep the electrons "soaking" the rear panel jacks. Would you like an '01 DVD-RP91? Ah, good year...

I never considered discrete capacitors as being included in the term "solid state"

There is certainly an effect of dielectric migration, etc, and some dielectrics used in capacitors are liquid and can "dry out" or burst.
Temperature also can have a large effect on how well a capactior performs.
The tolerance for such discrete components can also vary widely (which is a very real difference between high and low end products) I had a Professor who would replace every capacitor in his stereo gear with a high end,strict tolerance tantalum capacitors. It did make a huge difference.

However, most capacitors (with the exception of heat when the gear first warms up) will change pretty slowly.. I don't think a matter of weeks would do it, but that may depend pretty heavily on the particulat type of capacitors used...

Hahahahahahahaaha that was a good one Gonk! I laughed out loud here at my clients location. Of course, before you buy an amp you have to smell deeply into the vents to see if its good quality. (NOTE: Only the finest amps come precut with a nose hole for this purpose.)

I was looking through an audio advisor catalog just a little while ago, and came across this one:

"The Irrational, But Efficacious! test [and burn-in] CD...the main tool is a five-minute glide tone, that when played through your system at moderately low volume, will improve its sound....[the] tone helps demagnetize residual fields that build up in your components over time."

Who knew? :p

Burn baby burn!
http://www.theaudiocritic.com/downloads/article_1.pdf

Interesting note about your professor. It's been a number of years since I did analog audio circuit design, but I remember one rule of thumb from the articles I read in the "hobbyist" DIY audio publications: avoid tantalums in your signal path.

I can't find the articles I read in the past, but a quick web search does yield information. One in particular seemed to cut right to the chase:

"I'll be dogmatic about this: tantalum capacitors _stink _for audio use: they should never be used in any signal-carrying circuit. They sound tubby in the bass, harsh and gritty in the top end, and
compressed in their dynamics—mirroring their poor engineering performance in such factors as dielectric absorption." -- from http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Nebula/3736/improve_audio.txt

This is, of course, far from a known trustworthy source, but it does confirm what I remember reading and researching at the time.

Back to your point, though: I agree that any capacitors used in a typical reasonable quality piece of consumer gear, running well within tolerances (don't forget, we're talking about signal levels nominally of a few volts here), shouldn't be changing dramatically, noticably, or probably even measurably early on in their life.

How do you "spit out" what you've listened to, as you would after having tasted wine?

So I spent my first real amount of time listening to music Saturday, just after I brought my NAD in for service. Anyway, the great thing is that this unit is completely and utterly quiet. You won't hear any hum or white noise. It's music to my ears after owning an NAD which is amazing in analog mode, but I cannot say it was amazing in digital mode. Ok, the other thing I enjoyed was listening in bypass versus the upsample. It has become kind of an odd listening experience for me. To explain it is hard, but I find that in upsample mode the music is a bit more warm. In the bypass mode, it is cleaner to me. But it can be a bit harsh. In Radiohead, I want that pure sound. On Gershwin, I liked the warmness of the upsample. Hard to explain.

Shawn

Good question, indeed. White noise generator? Recording of air raid siren?

A quick question...

Does the 990 experience the same annoying 2-3 second delay when trying to sync on an audio source as the 950 does? Or does it lock on quickly and stay locked on. I need to know to help me to decide whether or not to put in my order. Any feedback that you can give would be appreciated. Thanks.

Jeff

I have never had that problem. I guess I don't totally understand the question. So long as the unit is on, I have never had a problem. If I hit power and the source starts playing at the same time (my CD-player is always on becasue it has no stand-by, just the button), it won't play until the pre-amp and the amp cycle on.

Shawn

So is this statement correct:

So is this statement correct:
1- Bypass mode only used the DAC and upsample uses both the DSP and the DAC?

If so, would any sound issues with Bypass mode be attributed to a defficiency in the DAC process?

Jeff's question is about how long it takes the 990 to lock on to a new digital audio signal - such as when channel surfing on digital cable and moving between channels that use different formats (or simply moving between channels when the cable box drops and reactivates the signal). The 950 took around 2 seconds to lock onto and begin playing the audio signal in those cases. It sounds like the 990 may have remedied this.

That reads a bit oddly to me. Bypass mode is passing the analog inputs directly to the left and right channels, with only volume control applied - by definition, there is no D/A involved. Since the sub is involved, the 990 is presumably behaving similar to the 950, which means the analog input is converted to digital and bass management applied to generate a subwoofer signal (assuming the main speakers are set to small), but the signal going to the mains never leaves the analog domain.

Upsample would presumably (based on the way the manual reads) only be applicable when using digital inputs, although it may also be applied by default to incoming analog signals that go through A/D conversion.

It was a long time ago (almost 15 years) so I could be mis-remembering the type of capacitor. (Maybe he was replacing ceramics with electroyitics???). This particular professor had actually worked as an AMP designer in the real world, and was pretty good at that Black Magic they call analog circuit design.

Can you remember why Tanalums are so bad? A Residual DC voltage shouldn't make much of a difference to an AC signal, and I find it hard to believe inductive effects are prevalent at 20Khz.
Is it current leakage? Just curious. (Mostly because I am pretty sure it was tantalums he was using...)

Gonk,

That is exactly what I meant to say. This is really my only gripe with the 950. Other than this, the 950 does everything that I need at this time. I haven't gotten into HD TV yet, so the video features aren't needed by me at this time. After getting the 950 I've spent more time listening to music and less time watching video. Even if the 990 does fix this issue, I don't know whether or not I will place my order based upon this one feature.

Jeff

Hi Gonk,

So you are saying Bypass only works with analog in from the CD player? I have an Onkyo that allows a "pure stereo" mode where the DSP does NO manipulation of the sound. I guess I assumed it was similar. My question was more oriented towards combining zero DSP manipulation with upsampling on the 990 and seeing if they were mutually exclusive.

Unless they've changed something drastically since the 950, bypass is more specifically an analog bypass, and therefore only works with analog inputs. "Pure stereo" would be the "stereo" mode - you can toggle through stereo, 5 stereo, or (if you have surround back speakers) 7 stereo, and "stereo" eliminates any DSP. This should be true of any "stereo" mode, in my opinion.

Be aware that the DSP must be used in order to convert the digital signal to analog, so a Bypass mode for digital would be the Power button. :p

Why would that be true? The P-965 supports Pure Audio mode (bypass) on stereo digital inputs that feeds the PCM direct to the DAC and then applies a 80Hz crossover in the analog domain. In Pure/Bypass mode the DSP and all video circuits are turned off.

I should know better than to do this after missing a night's sleep. DSP, DAC, I'm surprised I didn't read it as DOD and ask why the pentagon was involved.

I'll leave the post up as a cautionary tale for posting while impaired.

The lock on doesn't really seem to be an issue. It takes just as much time from my cable box to the TV or through my 990. So I don't see that as a problem. It takes 1 second, but the cable box always took that much time in analog 2.0.

As for upsample, it works on the analog in as well. I assume it converts the analog much in the same way that it converts to 5 channel stereo from an analog in. I am not using the digital in for my CD player.