Anyone do a comparison between the Outlaw combo and the Arcam AVR300? I have read that the AVR300 is one of the most impressive sounding units available - even over seperates, etc.
Comments please.
Thank you.
Mark

Arcam makes nice theater receivers. If you've got $$$ and you don't have a lot of space, they just plain work and they sound pretty good. That said, there is no way I'd settle for an Arcam receiver over the 990 plus any decent outboard amp. Until you get into really really big bucks, a theater receiver is always going to skimp on the amp stage both for cost and space considerations.

Cheers,

Read the review on iar-80.com - J Peter states esentially the same thought you just expressed but then goes on to say the AVR300 proved that idea wrong. It sounds like an impressive receiver.

The AVR300 is a nice receiver, and was in my top 3 when looking to upgrade my receiver. But that review is not a credible review. It turned me on to the Arcam, but with reviews (like figure skating) you really need to throw out the high and low scores. I just find it hard to believe a review when it is so overwhelmingly positive and gushing. Not to mention it's 6 pages of the same statements over and over again. Never really read a negative review of the 300, so it's obviously a top notch piece of equipment but it's not "the answer".

Andrew,
J Peter has been around for some time - and I too found it to be over the top positive - my first reaction was to wonder if he had ever tested Outlaw or even Sherwood products - and, if he did, would he say the same things about them? While I'm getting funds together for a purchase, I am researching as much as possible. I hope to bring home the Arcam for review in my own environment this weekend. At that point, I'll know if it is "The Answer" or if I should just continue with plans to buy the 990]7125 combo. I do wish Outlaw had made the power cord detachable on the 7125.

I have an idea....order the 990/7125 combo and do a comparison. Keep the one you like. We all would be terribly curious as to your conclusions.

braidkid,
I had thought about doing that, but I do not have the funds yet. So this weekend, I'm hoping to rent the Arcam and test it. IF, it sounds anything close to the review, I will order the 990/7125 combo ASAP and then rent the Arcam again to do exactly that. I did rent the Sherwood R965 which should have been close to the 990 in sound for 6 channel direct - which was my biggest concern - and it was fairly impressive.

Interestingly enough... almost. My friends and I did a blind test in January with a group of prepros and receivers. We did a comparison. The Arcam 300 blew away every receiver we listened to, it wasn't even close. The Arcam Pre-Pro blew away every Pre-Pro, again without any competition at all. It was just that much better at spacial placement for sound. The imaging was the best I've ever heard for a movie soundtrack. Stunning...

So we decided to see how the Receiver stacked up against the Pre-Pros. Mind you that while the Outlaw 990 was part of the test, the amp used was a Bel Canto unit. This unit costs about 5 times more than the 7125, and is considered to be one of the best amps on the market. It is definately the best digital amp on the market.

The Arcam Receiver held up. It got mixed into the pack with the rest on stereo listening. It did come in last. This wasn't a major last place finish however. I'd say that the 990 and the bunch that came in next to last were only slightly better. Say 10%.

However during movie playback, the Receiver came in 2nd behind the Pre-Pro. However our discovery was that it was only slightly better than the other Pre-Pros. Say again 10%. The Arcam Pre-Pro blew everything out of the water in movie playback. I'd say 25% better if not more. Its really the best I've ever heard movies sound.

So we didn't have a 7125, and there might be some synergy there between the 2 units, that just wasn't there for the Bel Canto.

We believe that Arcam must be using its processor to do something that others aren't. One person at the testing said that they'd heard similar differences with Ayre and Theta Digital. There just must be something going on inside that helps create the spatial differences heard in the imaging.

I'd personally do your own test. However I'm lead to believe that that the Arcam might be the better choice. I seriously doubt the Outlaw amp can compare to the Bel Canto (nor should it, two different markets entirely). So that Arcam might just be better.

The Arcam 300 is the best reviewed receiver in England. No receiver has better reviews over the pond. I remember reading one where the writer said it was better than his reference unit, which was Lexicon's $8,000 monster. The writer said he had a new reference receiver.

I don't know if its that good. Yet I've read a lot of reviews and never have I read where the writer wasn't shocked by how amazing the Arcam unit is.

The biggest problem is that both those units will have to be broken in. They do sound better with age, so the 7125 might not be as broken in as a well used rentable Arcam.

Which Bel Canto unit? I wasn't aware that Bel Canto even manufactured a multi-channel theater amp.

I have listened to Arcam units extensively and I don't see the dramatic difference you're referring to. I've not tried Bel Canto amps, but I have listened to Krell/Pass Labs/Parasound/Tact/Lyndorf and a few others that I'd consider higher end. Granted, the Arcam 300 sounds good, but so does the 990. I wonder if there wasn't some other issue that's being overlooked that influenced the sound so much...

Cheers,

tsd2005,
Thanks for the very interesting comments regarding your testing. I have been auditioning the AVR300 for the last 2 days and I must say I am EXTREMELY impressed with the 2 channel audio. Better than ANY other receiver I have ever heard. I've heard more clarity, stage depth, imaging and detail in these past 2 days than I ever had through most other systems. I look forward to hearing the 990 and possibly comparing it to this same receiver when I do get the Outlaw gear. I'd appreciate any other comments you might have - did you use direct outs in both reciever and Pre/Pro? Did you do any multichannel music?

tsd2005,
What receivers were compared?

The eVo6, which I think has been out in one form or another for years. Its a 6 channel version of the eVo2.

I could say the same for your reasoning behind Arcam for influencing sound. However it could be simply that the 990 didn't have good synergy with the Bel Canto. That happens often. It could be the AVM30 didn't match up well with the Bel Canto. We likely should have used it with multiple amps.

What I know is that for our Pre-Pro testing nothing came close to the $5,000+ AV8. Considering that it was up against an AVM30 ($3,500 roughly) and a NADT163 ($1,500) and a Outlaw 990 ($1,100) it shouldn't be that big of a surprise.

Perhaps Krell, etc. have comparable units. I don't know. I do know that the AV8 won more best of the year awards than any Pre-Pro not made by Theta Digital in the last decade. To me that is pretty good company.

I didn't do the hookups for the test. I was just a guy willing to give his opinion.

The Receiver test wasn't fair as there was Yamaha, Onky, and Pioneer Elite gear in it. The Denon 3805 came in 2nd behind the Arcams.

The Denon was rather musical as well. For me I've heard a lot of receivers and the Arcam does the best in both worlds of 2 channel and multi-channel (movie playback).

It was a blind test where no one was allowed to share their opinions. We just wrote down what we thought on each number. Then we wrote our scores out. No one talked, and the results were unarguable.

I've heard the 990 and I was impressed, but I haven't heard the 7125 which combined with the 990 could be better than the Arcam Receiver. I look forward to hearing what you find out.

Thanks for the insight into the test. I'll let you know asap. i hope to do so in about two weeks

Why?

Could you expand more on the precise test proceedure?

different power cords can sometime be used as a tweak to the amp.

The impact of an aftermarket power cord on an amp's sound is left up to debate. If you can prove this to be true, the James Randi Educational Foundation will pay you $1 million dollars (www.randi.org)

Hmmm.

So, if I understand this correctly:

1. You trust the engineers at Outlaw and their subcontractors to design and implement a product as complex as a modern multichannel amplifier, including all the QA and manufacturing issues associated with this undertaking, yet you think they'll screw up selecting an appropriate power cord?
   
   Does this seem reasonable to you?
   
   Also ....
   -----
2. The power to run the amplifier comes from something like:
   1. Water flows through a turbine, spinning a shaft which turns a generator.
   2. The generator produces electricity, which is regulated and transmitted via a series of fuses, inductors, transformers, capacitors and other devices to a high voltage distribution system
   3. That power then travels hundreds or thousands of miles to a major substation, where it is again fused, transformed, run through inductors, capacitors, and so forth.
   4. A local distribution system brings the power to your curb, where it is again fused, transformed and runs via a few dozen or hundred feet to a distribution panel in your home.
   5. Inside that panel, the power runs through a main circuit breaker, an electrical bus, and a circuit breaker for the branch circuit in your home.
   6. Next, there is a 10-100 foot journey from the distribution panel to a wall recepticle
   7. FINALLY we travel a handful of feet to the device, in this case, our Outlaw amplifier. SO somehow this last few microscopic feet of the power distribution chain is very very critical ...
   
   I would suggest it's promoted as such to line the pockets of those who sell high end power wires.

It never made any logical sense to me, which is probably why that $1 million is unclaimed. Please understand, I'm not trying to be an ass, but I think that in any discussion of such things a bit of perspective helps. Also, extraordinary claims are usually expected to have extraordinary proof associated with them.

I'll be checking out Arcam though.

charlie,

you are not being a badass. you are spot on. it's all about making money on any part of the system you can sell the snake oil. powerlines can be noisy but powercords can do nothing but transmit what's in the line as long as the grounds are good and the contacts solid. I don't want to antagonize all those peope who have spent hundreds on power lines but yes, Outlaw can provide an adequate power cord.

Ok, so by this logic, does the analogy hold for the interconnects, speaker and sources? This is one I've struggled with over the years. Always thought somebody was making the emperor's new clothes!

"Speaker"? I don't understand you, syvlr - speakers make a bigger difference than anything else in the reproduction chain, maybe bigger than everything else put together. Also I don't see how charlie's analogy could apply to anything but the power cord. However, I've never heard a demonstration that convinced me that different unbalanced interconnects make much difference, and have myself fabricated stereo interconnects, from 4-conductor phone cord and 4 of the cheapest RS phono jacks, that on direct instantaneous switching were virtually indistinguishable from $700+ Cardas cables, at least with the system in use (Linn CD player & integrated amplifier & small Linn 2-way speakers). That demonstration convinced me that heard differences are mostly aural placebo effects. Hope I haven't offended anyone,

Paul Nay

syvlvr is referring to cables, I think - speaker cables and interconnect cables. In that case, borrowing from charlie's analogy, you have people buying $1000+ speaker cables to go from binding post to binding post, when the wire inside the speaker between binding post, crossover, and drivers is just your average insulated copper wire (of a gauge and quality suitable for the design).

Ok, what I meant was the various interconnects, be they for speakers or rcas/balanced etc., has anyone felt/heard a great diff or is this one of those things that keeps the cable folx in the money...

I would discard the interconnects that come with products (with the exception of the power cord)and buy some that are in the $10-20 range. I would argue this benefit. Anything above this in my opinion is wasting your money. I normally use Acoustic Research Pro series cables for everything. They are pretty cheap:

http://www.buy.com/prod/Acoustic_Researc...1/90130165.html

and perform very well. I would argue with anyone wanting to spend more than this on cables the laws of diminishing returns. Snake oil is abound in the cabling industry.

And another to add in this off-topic thread: today got my cable box replaced, and solved a noisy mystery. My coax feeding the box was causing a very loud hum, which I assumed was caused by the cable company. But when I removed the rca cables from my 950 that were going into the amp, silence.

The cable tech was about as helpful. Said his system couldn't be the source of the buzz/hum.

Next up is the 990/7500 combo with balanced, will see how this fares with the cable company.

A hum that goes away when the cable box (or just the coax into the cable box) is disconnected is quite common, and is caused by a ground loop. The cable company's equipment (not the box in your house, but the stuff further upstream) is at a different ground potential than the equipment in your audio rack which (presumably) is connected to a single common ground point. This is easily solved with a Jensen Transformers VRD-1FF Cable TV Ground Loop Isolator . They can be bought on eBay for about $50.

For more info on ground loops in audio systems, see this audioholics article .

The 990/7700 combo will have the same hum if you have a ground loop caused by the cable connection. I used the Jensen isolator to solve that very same problem.

We sat in a room and listened/watched things. We were told you're now listening to number 1, and gave our opinions on paper making notes. We rated the device on a 1 to 10, but not until we had heard each one, and the process was repeated.

The numbers for the units changed with only the person running the test knowing which was which. We couldn't see the units.

At the end we xeroxed our results. Then he handed out a Key that let us know which unit had which numbers. So the 990 had numbers like 4, 9, 14, 15, etc. We used the key figure out the scores for each unit. The Xeroxes went to an impartial 3rd party who double checked the results. This same person made sure that the units were actually playing when we were told "unit 12," for instance.

I don't know how anyone could have seen thru the test.

Thanks for the test explanation. It sounds like it was a great deal of fun and interesting.

Did you use the digital output of the source equipment for the stereo testing, or did you use analog in a direct mode?

Thanks.

[/QUOTE]Did you use the digital output of the source equipment for the stereo testing, or did you use analog in a direct mode?

Thanks. [/QB][/QUOTE]
I used both but mostly analog six channel. Near the end of my testing - we did try some of the DSP recommendations as per J Peters suggestions on iar-80.com