Let me preface this by telling you a little about my setup. I am about 70% movies and 30% music. Before purchasing the 990 I had a Yamaha HTR-5790 receiver running M&K 5.1 setup. I did not use the auto eq feature of the receiver and never used THX processing either as I felt they dulled the sound. A couple months after purchasing the Yamaha, I purchased the Outlaw 7100 7 channel amp. There wasn't a night and day difference, however, I did notice a few subtle details I hadn't heard before in music. With the holiday's approaching, I figured I would treat myself to the new 990 processor in hopes for an even greater improvement.

The 990 arrived via Fedex late Friday night. I eagerly cut the box tape to have a look at my new toy. The unit was packaged very well inside two boxes with thick Styrofoam surrounding the unit. I was impressed by the overall look of the unit. Looks much better in real life than in pictures. I really appreciate its large design as it was easy to make connections to the back. I can see how the size would create issues for those installing in racks. I placed mine on the top shelf of my AV rack giving it plenty of room.

First positive thing I noticed…my BFD always produced a hum even using my Panamax 5500 conditioner. Upon connecting the 990 to the system and turning everything on, the hum was gone!!! I put my head directly to the speaker and could not believe what I was not hearing!! So far, I was happy.

Setup was a breeze. I first configured the inputs. I configured DVD input for my 2910 player using coax1. I left the video configuration as composite since I connect directly to my projector via HDMI bypassing the 990 completely. Surround default setting was set to upsample. The only other input I configured was for my Comcast 6412 cable box. This was configured using the Video1 component input with PLII as the default surround setting.

Next, I tried the auto setup. This is where I ran into a problem. After running all the tones (which were much louder than I expected) I got a message saying the surrounds were full range and to run the setup again after switching the surrounds with the fronts. Ok, whatever, this isn't the first time I've gotten strange results from auto setups. I'm guessing maybe the problem resulted from my sub setting. My subs were set to bypass during setup, perhaps I should set them to 80Hz for setup and see what happens. Anyway, no big deal. I have a tape measure and RS SPL just for this kind of thing!!!

I proceeded to manually configure the processor. All speakers were set to small and all crossovers set to 80Hz. I entered correct distances and set all levels using the speaker meter.

Now it was time to listen. I started with Alison Kraus's New Favorite SACD. Track 10 was just as clear as I remember using my Yamaha. However, it seemed the soundstage was more distinct with better placement of her voice and tiny details I don't remember before. I was impressed. Next, I moved on to Miles Davis Kind of Blue SACD. This is where I really heard a difference. Track one opens with piano and a great standup bass centered in front. I swear I could almost hear the fingers sliding along the strings. Also, the high hat cymbal had a resilience to it I don't remember hearing. Closing my eyes I could swear I was sitting in a club listening for the first time. Diana Krall's Love Scene's DVD-A sounded just as good. My Love has the perfect standup bass opening. The sound of the bass was centered in-between my mains perfectly. Her voice sounded as if I was in the concert hall listening just her and me!! Yea, I wish!! All in all I could tell a difference with high resolution audio. This is a result of the analog stage of the 990 being superior to that of the 5790. I tested a few of my favorite CD's as well. Animal Collective's "Feel" is one of my current favorites. Track 4 takes you through multiple melodies ending on one of my favorite 2 minutes of the disk. In upsample mode the 990 delivered. I tried comparing stereo, bypass, and upsample. To tell you the truth, it was hard to tell the difference between upsample and bypass. Probably more a limitation of my room, speakers, and untrained ear. Sigur Ros's new album Takk was just as impressive. I can't say I noticed a night and day difference over the Yamaha, but there was a slight improvement in the midrange as well as slightly better imaging across the mains.

Now onto movies….this was where I noticed the largest improvement. First I tried Star Wars II. I was literally blown away by the THX exploding ball intro. I didn't realize where all those shards of glass fell before. The increased clarity and detail was staggering on the intro alone. Throughout watching the movie I was literally floored by the increased sense of space. I had all my channel levels set with the Yamaha, but I swear I've never heard the surrounds like I do with the 990. The details just seem to come out more with better channel steering and realism. Next, I moved on to Master and Commander. The same thing, more clarity and detail in the sound field. Words to help describe would be open, wide, crisp, detailed, etc…More 3 dimensional than the Yamaha.

The most important feature of the 990 for me was the sound. I could care less about multi-zone, the remote, auto setup, etc….and I can say the 990 delivers. Granted this is my first step into dedicated separates so take my words with a grain of salt. Apart from the 990 I have heard Lexicon, Sunfire's TGIV, and Anthem's D1, all of which are very nice but are also out of my price range. For me and my room, I think an extra thousand dollars wouldn't yield tremendous improvement over the 990. I believe further room acoustic problems would need to be addressed before an audible difference could be determined.

Now for what I don't know (most of which concerns bass management)

Over the weekend I ran my low frequency tests in order to eq my subwoofer using a BFD. I use the Room EQ Wizard connected to my laptop and the analog radio shack speaker meter for microphone. I connected to the right AUX analog channel input for my sweeps. I discovered an interesting tidbit. Switching between stereo and Dolby PLII yielded different results. When running a sweep from 20Hz all the way up to 900Hz using just the subs in stereo mode, there was no bass management. The subs were audible as high as 900Hz!!! Running the same sweep in Dolby PLII, the subs did roll off after about 120Hz like they should. This confuses me since the 990 is supposed to apply bass management to all inputs if speakers are set to small. This finding challenges this theory.

There has been much debate as to where and how the 990 applies bass management. I will point out Joel's review of the 990 in Ultimate AV. In his own words…
"...the Outlaw allows you to send the audio signal into a 7.1-channel analog input. But using that input means you get no bass management.."
"The instructions note that you can convert the signal to digital, at which point the processor can apply bass management—without pointing out that doing so adds an extra layer of analog-to-digital conversion that adversely affects the signal. Over the years, I have tried this with several processors and concluded that conversion dulls the pristine sound of SACD or DVD-Audio. That conclusion was no different with the Outlaw. I simply would not recommend it."

So what Joel is saying is the 990 does not apply bass management when using 7.1 channel analog input. According to Outlaw this is not correct as stated in their response. Unless speakers are set to large, the 990 applies digital bass management no matter the input.

I sort of laugh when I read the rest of Joel's review…
"For SACD playback I used my Sony player's internal signal processing and the analog input in the Outlaw so that it became a passive purveyor of the audio signal. In that situation, it should not add or subtract anything from the signal, and the Outlaw did not. "

So, in essence he's saying the Outlaw did not add anything to the sound but was in fact applying bass management twice, a process that he stated earlier "dulls the pristine sound." I guess this goes to show we can't always trust our ears or what we read.

Other issues I have concern the remote. As I said earlier the most important aspect for me is the sound, something the 990 delivers, but I figure the remote should work as advertised. The program codes for my Denon 2910 DVD player as well as my Motorola 6412 Comcast cable box do not work for the remote. I have written Outlaw and am waiting a response. If I can't get a resolution I may just settle using multiple remotes or buy a good universal one.

Conclusion

I am very happy with the 990 and did notice an audible improvement in sound quality. Aside from a few room treatments and the BFD to eq my sub, it has produced the most dramatic improvement in sound quality. I believe the 990 is the smart choice for those of us without large amounts of disposable income for a number of reasons. Room acoustics are often overlooked in many rooms making it very tough to discern one processor from another much less amplifier differences. The 990 comes with a 5 year TRANSFERABLE warranty giving it a high resale value. When Dolby-HD finally comes, and I decide to sell, I'm only out a couple hundred dollars. Also, Outlaw's customer support and group forum make it easy to resolve problems.
Hope this helps anyone currently on the fence.

Great review! Thanks. Interesting point about Joel's review as well. We sometimes hear what we think we're gonna hear I suppose.

Good Review. Good Information. This forum is helping to sell components as well as offer support to existing customers.

Yes, very nice review! I have an older model Motorola/Comcast HD cable box than yours and had to use the search for a code method on page 41 of the 990 manual. It found a code which works and did not take very long. You might try this with the Denon DVD player too.

And sorry, no, I don't know what the code is.

After spending some more time with the 990 I've found another issue that will need to be fixed via software, I hope.

I've noticed the processor not locking onto all channels. For instance, I was watching Cinderalla Man the other night and noticed my soundstage was gone with everything coming from the center only. Sure enough, I cycled through the Dolby Modes on the remote and all channels came back online.

We need a software update Outlaw to address these minor bugs.