My first "hi end" gear was the Carver ct-17 mated with the TFM 25 and the Luxman 4 channel amp. I have Energy reference speakers that can handle 200 watts and Energy EFX speakers. I used it then for 50-50 music and movies. I have to say I loved the warm sound of Carver. Then when DVD's came out, AC-3 came out as well. So I upgraded to the Marantz SR-880 at the time. For music it was a major disappointment and unfortuanted I had commited the sale of my Carver system with regrets. I see many good things here about Outlaw as well as on avsforum. I like to get your opinions on the 990. Do you think it will sound = if not better to the Carver system I once had. Let me know your thoughts. Thank you all.

Yes.
However, that answer is based on no experience with your Carver eqpt. This 990 has newer technology. I will tell you that it is my first venture into pre/pro for surround sound. All of its features are top-notch, and software upgrades are promised which will enhance it even further.

Liking to "squeeze" as much function out of any audio/video eqpt I buy I have found several things that I can do with this which, in my humble opinion were not in the planning of the product. I think outside the box and found additional uses for this fine piece of equipment.

Then, there is the 5 yr-warranty which is transferable. Then there is the 30 day trial period wherein you can send it back for a full refund, not including shipping, of course.

It hink it;s a no-brainer andyou won't be disappointed.

Since I haven't got any personal experience with Carver gear, I can't really offer a particularly useful answer to the question at hand. There are a number of very knowledgeable folks around here (which is why it is such a useful forum, especially for technical questions about home theater in general and Outlaw gear in particular), so there may be somebody around here that has heard both the Carver gear in question and the 990. It's worth pointing out, though, that you have to consider your audience - and the audience around here (as is the case with any brand-specific forum) includes a large number of folks who are here because they have a preference for Outlaw gear. That may influence whatever answer we can offer (although, to give the forum members around here credit, we do generally call it like we see it).

Back in the early 90's I had a carver ct-17 connected to a carver m-500t with a pair of Infinity RS-6's(I could be wrong on the exact model #'s). That setup totally rocked!!!!

I had to sell that equipment to pay for college tuition in '96. I just figured I would graduate and buy a new and better setup. But as the saying goes "life happens while you are busy making other plans", ie wife, house, 2 kids, dog, cat, I never did get to "upgrade"

So now 10 years have passed and I finally got back into ht/stero equipment again. The first equipment I went to test was good old Bob Carver's Sunfire gear, I totally loved it, but at about 6k for a pre pro and amp there was no way I could do it. That is when I discovered Outlaw.

I read as much as I could about outlaw but was still a little worried about buying somthing without hearing it first. But as luck would have it last summer outlaw had a demo at a show in nyc. Long story short, I went, I listened, and I had a new love!!!

So I signed up for the 990 pre order list and recieved my unit as part of the second waive shipped.

As far as trying to compare the outlaw equipment to the carver equipment thats almost impossible for me to do. First off my 990 is paired to a 7100. Even though I am running a 5.1 set up and using the 2 "extra" channels to biamp my mains giving me 200wpc, my old carver amp was 250 wps in to 8 ohms, and my old infinity speakers were 6 ohms so I was getting somthing like 300+ wpc. Quite a noticeable difference, I never got my old Carver/Infinity past 50% it was so loud and yet undistorted. whereas now its not unusuall for me to listen to 2ch at about the 0 volume level. Second I am running my outlaw gear through Infinity beta 50's which I feel are quite inferior to my old Infinity RS-6's. I got them at a such a low price I could not turn them down(I plan to be upgrading to axiom speakers within the next year, my wife just doesent know it yet!)

In conclusion I guess I would say my old carver/infinity setup was slightly "warmer" and had slightly better "soundstaging"(I am not an expert, thats just how I would describe it) than my current outlaw/infinity setup. but I believe that 90% of the difference is due to the speakers. but here is the kicker, I love my outlaw/infinity setup twice as much as my old carver/infinity gear!!! the outlaw gear totally kicks ass for ht, every time I throw in a dvd it blows me away!!! so I dont mind what I feel is very slight drop in 2ch performance(like 5%) when I have fantastic ht setup.

I wish I could help you out more. I still miss my carver gear, but more for nostalgic reasons than a difference in sound quality. I am adding a new family room to the house next year and my plan is to pick up a sunfire amp on audiogon/ebay and compare it to a 7700. thats the beauty of the 30 try at home policy, and somthing you may want to try. but as far as the 990 goes that is a deal that just cant be beat as far as function vs price