Cedman1,
I did not see the menu I cannot comment. Over at AVS, someone who bought one the units on sale, said he wasn't crazy about the menu. Please, read his comments. The build quality appeared to be fine. The unit is quite large, when looking inside, you see lot's of empty space and a small circuit board. The unit looks better in person than it does in the photo's, in my opinion.

I didn't lead or mislead anyone. I posted facts; people can read them and make up their own minds. I even sourced your quotes so that people can go to those forums and read your entire posts. No. I specifically separated the quote about harshness from the quote about your ears bleeding, attributing the latter to the Outlaw demo and not the harshness. So when you say that the 'Flight of the Phoenix' scene made your ears bleed, are you talking about something that wasn't part of the Outlaw demo? Neither. And considering your activity and comments at various forums during the last two days, I could ask you the same thing about Outlaw. After all, why would you say "don't get the impression that I'm an outlaw basher" unless you knew that that's how your comments are painting you.

It's also not axe-grinding to point out the context of your comments. I'm still amazed that you could walk out of that demo and attribute specific sonic qualities to the 990. You sure the lack of high end smoothness and clarity wasn't due to the Outlaw cables being used or the Outlaw amplifier? How did you decide it was the 990?

Sanja,

I hope you are a lawyer, because you distort the facts very well.

Why must you turn this nice civalized discussion into something ugly? Just like so many other threads, someone like you comes along, then the mud slinging starts, goes off topic and thread is closed.

Go listen to your lexicon and leave us alone.

mendes9 (and others here):

Let's be civil to one another; we don't want the Outlaws to run us out of town! Remember people could just as easily tell you to "go listen to your Anthem and leave us alone", but that wouldn't be nice, would it?

Listen to your Anthem? What, you say you would love to but don't actually own one since it is just too expensive for your budget? Hmmm, and the 990 sounds just as good, and to the ears of some better, but is about one third the cost? Gee, that's just TERRIBLE, isn't it? Who could possibly want to buy something that has basically the same value but costs considerably less?

Gee, isn't that the whole idea here? Great sounding stuff with just the right combination of features at a very modest cost in comparison to the high priced spreads?

Something that did impress me about the demo which I thought was very enveloping, was that Scott was using good ole HomeDepot zip cord for speaker wire. None of that super fancy stuff the other crowd was using. Mendes did you get to hear thiphiaudio's demo. They used a Kenwood receiver and a sony dvd player and reproduced some great two-channel with orb looking speakers. As I mentioned in another forum, if you bought the 950, I think selling it and purchasing the 990 is a no-brainer. It will be a great $600 upgrade if you can afford it, and make use of the features. I was allowed to play my own Diana Krall DVD when I went back on Sunday. In my opinion I related to the Outlaw sounding smooth. As far as one of the best demo's for HT, there was only one that I thought was better. The 75,000 buck cinepro which I think if Outlaw had used a third sub it would have been a fairer fight. But two 15inch super subs against two for $1000 bucks, it was not fair fight. I enjoyed the Anthem D1 demo, as it introduced me to Patricia Barber. One I got that SACD home and played it, my friend commented how my speakers never sounded better. Source material makes a demo. Once you have the 990 in your own home, with your own speakers, then peoples opinions canreally have some weight behind them.

Well put! Your own cables, amp, source player and speakers. Then and only then can anyone give a meaningful review but it will still be biased towards that particular equipment/environment and the individual's personal taste.

That's why I rarely go into a B&M store to "audition" equipment. A waste of time IMHO. The true test is listening at home.

The thread is still civilized and hasn't gotten ugly. There's no mudslinging (certainly not on my part), but I do feel it is important to put your comments in context. Especially since you've been quite busy during the last couple of days posting those comments at several forums (note that I'm not the only one to point this out).

This thread hasn't gone off-topic. My questions specifically address claims you made in your first post. If you find them uncomfortable, then that's too bad. But they are valid questions.

You still haven't answered how you could come out of that short demo and attribute specific sonic qualities to the pre-pro. Prospective 990 buyers would find that information useful.

Earlier you claimed "The 990 just doesn't have the high end smooth and clairty sound of say an anthem D1, or Meridian/Lex products." You also said "I was really hoping this would be the $3000 processor for $1000.. folks trust me it isn't." Folks could trust you more if you explained the context of your 990 vs Anthem/Meridian/Lex comparison. That would be very helpful for people considering the 990. Who are you talking on behalf of when you say "us"? I've been posting here for over 3 years. You just showed up last month.

Point proven... your trashing the thread.

"You still haven't answered how you could come out of that short demo and attribute specific sonic qualities to the pre-pro. Prospective 990 buyers would find that information useful."

I did give you the answer, you just don't want to accept it. I gave my impression of the demo at the HE 2005, PERIOD. Take it or leave it. Clearly this is my impression based on 2 times I demod the 990, that's it period. Not based on 100 hours of listening and A/B-ing with different equipment.

You want to trash and critique my opinion of the demo, I have no issue with that. However, do it like a gentleman as Gonk did, and don't take tid bits of my posts and twist the meaning of what I posted. That is where my beef is with you.

Yes, so I signed up to post a month ago, guess that means I've only been reading the posts around here for a month... and I've only known about oulaw products for a month now also. Humm.. you have come to another wrong conclusion.

I'm sorry "Iggy The Dog", this was civil until Sanjay posted.

Also, 2 of the 3 firstowners, are giving the 990 good reviews.

STOP THE MADNESS!

You're both right and you are both a bit over the line. Let's leave everyone to their own opinion and move on. Sanjay was a bit defensive, mendes was a bit edgy ("go listen to your Lexicon"). Please remember that when you write stuff here it is hard to filter through sometimes, as written communications lack the inflection and speech patterns of talking to someone in person or on the phone.

Let's get back to the topic at hand: How does the 990 sound? From what everyone agrees, so far, so (quite) good! In reality, while the HE Show demo proves the basic points, the real test will come when people are able to listen in comfortable surroundings, with speakers and amplifiers that they already "know" and with program material that they have a frame of reference for.

The bottom line seems to be that the HE Show demonstrated (literally!) that the 990 passes the first round of "real world" tests, let's be cool until some of us get our hands on them for ourselves.

Thanks Iggy, I think that was a fair summary.

Here is a real life review, from one of the first owners. Looking good

"OK, it is only 5.1 because my room isn't big enough to support more right now. But I am listening to the 990 with an Outlaw 770 Amp. I have an Arcam cd73T as a source and Paradigm Studio 60s in the front 20s in the back and a Studio Center in front, all version 2. Hsu Vtf-2 as the sub. So far I am impressed. As I posted in the outlaw forum it all works amazingly well so far. The only majot complaint I have is the remote. I got a beta copy of the manual today (No I cannot give it to you or post it or I will violate an agreement with Outlaw). So my first impressions are all positive. The only semi negatives are that the remote is pretty terrible (can't wait for them to program a Harmony code for it) and I think the Arcam sounds better using its Dac than the one in the preamp. I can't say I didn't expect that. Arcam is, in my opinion, the CD player maker for the dollar really. Also, I bought the Arcam for a reason... If you want a preamp that is going to do better than an Arcam, the Anthem D-1 may be for you, at $4k more...

The autosetup works flawlessly, though I did mount my mic to a tripod to do it. It worked perfect. I tweaked the sub a bit, but that is because I like things a little more bass heavy than others.

I plan on getting a 20' usb cable to try that tomorrow. FYI, only stereo mode over USB. Not a complete digital stream, so if you have a digital out on your sound card, plan on using that.

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.

I haven't watched a movie yet. That's tomorrow night, if the girl I am dating will let me stay in again. Heh. I have listened to Dave Matthews Live in Central Park on DVD though. I will say that I actually enjoyed the Neo DTS mix from the Preamp (using linear PCM) more than I liked the 5.1 mix that was on the DVD. The sound quality was the same, just liked the Preamps mix better.

Alas, I have to go back to billing hours. I can't wait until I get a day or six to sit and play with this. Oh, as a plus, the pre amp is dead quite. I can't even tell it and the amp are on if the source is selected but nothing is playing. What a stepup from my NAD T763.... If you want to ask questions about it, feel free to post here or PM me. I will get back to you as soon as I can"