I have used the 990 for 2 weeks now and I have never been more impressed with a piece of equipment, regardless of price! I am a long time AV early adopter, having purchased the first SONY DVD player for over $1,000 way back when - and had laser disks prior to that. Over the years, I have always used Magneplanar speakers (since 1976), along with other high end gear. I recently built a 1000 square foot dedicated home theatre, complete with sound proofing all around. Since I have an Optoma H77 projector with DVI input, as well as DVI equipped DVD player and HDTV tuner, I had been waiting for a DVI equipped pre-amp processor. I did not have any cost constraints, but had visited the Outlaw site a few times. When I saw they had the 990 available, I took the plunge for what is definitely a lot less than I had planned to spend. What a pleasant surprise!!

After hooking up the new pre-amp, I went through the automatic speaker calibration and was really impressed with how close the auto set-up came to the calibration I did manually with an SPL meter. The bass management is particularly good, and an extemely good match for my Magneplanars ( 1.6QR for front, CC3 center, and MGMC1 for rears). The dual Definititve Technology Powered 15" subwoofers I use had always sounded 'bloated and boomy' before, but now they sound fantastic. Using the crossover at 60 Hz for the fronts and 80 Hz for the rest makes the system sound fantastic - better than anything I have heard before - and this includes some $100K+ systems. The transparency of the sound from the 990 is on a par with ANYTHING I have heard, and is very close to some very expensive tube equipment that is utterly impractical for home theatre (only 2 channels).

Anyway, you can probably tell I am VERY happy with the 990 unit, and I would recommend it to everyone - especially if you like the 'open' sound of Magneplanars. Again, the Magneplanars are rather tough to mate with a good subwoofer because of their timid low bass, but very excellent mid and upper bass. But, the flexible bass management of the 990 handles my system superbly.

Great job Outlaws! I also commend the support team as I had a very strange problem soon after the intital set-up. They told me to reset the processor, and then everything worked perfectly. They were very helpful and courteous to me when I probably sounded like a complete 'nut-case' over the phone.

In conclusion, my system has never sounded better, and the 990 made all the difference - much more so than I thought possible for any single new component!

I too found that the 990 improved the balance between my Radia 520i (planar magnetic) fronts and custom Acoustic Visions 96l Q=0.6 sub, even when playing back 2 channel music.

I was all prepared to get full-range fronts, and use the sub strictly for movie LFE, but the 990 convinced me that this was likely unnecessary.

I'm strictly 2.1 right now -- I had been looking for an A/V pre/pro for a while, but when my old stereo preamp died, I took the plunge a bit early. Combined with an Odyssey Stratos Plus amp for the mains and my powered sub, it is of a very high quality.

The 990 is not only good value for the money, it is an excellent performer regardless of price.

While it could stand to have better control software (some of the setup menus are odd, changing some things is more difficult than necessary, and there are a few glitches (no suport for no center channel with small mains)), and digital to analog and more video transcoding capability, particularly for the second zone (which will only switch analog inputs), none of these affect the unit's sonic abilities.

I'm very happy with mine too. It's not "the best" pre-amp I've ever heard, but it's up in the high 90th percentile and costs several times less than gear offering what I perceived to be a more open sound. Of course, this is all completely subjective since the other pre-amps were on different systems with different amps, different cables, different speakers, etc.

One of these days, I'll have to attempt an A/B comparison with my friend's TACT gear and see how it stacks up.

Cheers,

Tact?

Did you say Tact?

I've been drooling off and on over Tact Audio since I became aware of their Millenium Mk. II amp.

Of course, that gear costs 10 dB more than than Outlaw stuff (i.e. an order of magnitude more). Their "consumer" stuff is a little more affordable (only 3-6 dB more than the Outlaw).

Does your friend like it, and is he taking advantage of the room processing?

Yeah, he loves it. I love it too. He's also using Maggies and the fancy room correction. However, it is extremely expensive...not quite Meridian expensive, but a LOT more than Outlaw equipment. If money wasn't an issue, I'd probably have just copied his setup.

However, I think the Outlaw gear sounds almost as good and (as you mentioned) is an order of magnitude cheaper. At this pricepoint, I really can't think of any other brand I could recommend. Audiophile quality/sound without the hype works well for me. When I have a lot more cash and my wife isn't watching, THEN I'll consider the TACT gear. 8-)

Cheers,