The funny thing about power cables is that all components except the 990, or any other receiver/pre I've looked at, are on the left hand side of the component...receivers/pres seem to be on the right hand side (when looking at it from the back). So I am having a bit of a tough time deciding the best path to route my cables. There seems to be a power supply or power cord no matter which way I turn...very frustrating.

Coupling from power cables into the signal cables would introduce a hum not a hiss, and they really have to be very close together for that to happen. And balanced interconnects would eliminate even that.

Regarding the hiss, is it still there with the amp inputs disconected, or even better, shorted?

Nope, not there when the signal cables are disconnected, and I haven't tried it with shorted plugs yet. I could be picking up some RF from somewhere, but I'm not sure.

Well, I finally got to watch a big person movie. I threw in Fellowship of the Ring. Now I suppose I can claim to have heard things that I didn't hear before. In the scene when Arogorn is taking the hobbits to Rivendell, there's a part when it's raining, but you can't really see it yet on the screen. Well I never heard it before either. At first I thought I was getting some kind of static or interferance, until I realized that it was rain...pretty cool. Overall, it was pretty awesome. I do find myself listening at much louder levels with the 990, than I did with the 54TX. The biggest part of that is simply due to the clarity of the presenation; it doesn't garble or muddle, it's clear no matter what the volume. Bass response was excellent, dialogue was outstanding. I should receive my balanced cables in the next day or two, so that'll give me a few days using those before I switch back to the Pioneer to round off the comparison. The ability to set different crossover freq's for different speakers is a definite plus. It will be especially useful when I receive my 340SE's, as they have a lower frequency extension than the 340 classics, so I will be able to cross them at 60hz. I currenlty cross the mains and center at 80hz and the surrounds at 100hz.

I suppose I'll have to modify all of my comments into one single review and post on AVS...that should start some interesting trouble . I'll post some more when I have some more to post, but now it's back to the 990.

I just want to clarify that any of my negative opinions in earlier posts were not meant as jabs at Outlaw or the 990. I was simply hoping that I wouldn't like the 990 or that the difference between it and the 54TX would be minimal so I could save myself some money...so far it's looking like that's not going to happen...nothing more than wichful thinking I guess.

See if the hiss goes away with the balanced interconnects. Some amps with both XLR and RCA inputs want to have one side of the XLR inputs shorted if using the RCA inputs. But if you don't have the shorting plugs and are getting the balanced cables soon, I'd just wait and see what happens when you switch to those.

Sounds good. I'll let you know how it goes with the balanced cables. Thanks again 3no

Okay, I got the balanced cables, hooked them up, and I got a good amount of both hum and static out of my FR channel. I'm pretty confident that it's the amp itself, since I swapped it with another one and the noise was pretty much gone. The problem is that I have to keep that amp in the loop, because it's all I have, so I think it's causing the system to be noisier than it should be. Oddly though, the unbalanced connections seemed to work fine - there was some hiss, but no hum or crackling. I've already ordered a new one, so we'll see how that goes.

Leave the XLR cables plugged in at the 990 end and swap FR and FL at the amp inputs. See if the hum/noise moves (990 or cable) or stays put (amp channel).

It moves