Zest, I talked to Steve @ Outlaw on Friday about using alternative shippers, and the short answer is for us poor bastards here in Canada, like it or not, we have to put up with those UPS bandit's. To make matters worst is the fact that the 990 ships from the east coast, and the pwr amps ship from the west coast. Now UPS gets to ding us for clearing shipments twice instead of a once with a combined shipment. Bummer. I had dug into previous discussions of how to avoid paying excessive customs clearing charges by clearing it yourself by going to the UPS port of entry warehouse (assuming you are close to one) to p/u the documents and take them personnally to the CBSA to pay duties and taxes. Just to spite UPS, I would likley try this route despite the inconvenience of having to do it two times with two different shipments arriving at different days.
What a headache though. It's a consideration for me when it comes to decide whether I want to order the Outlaw gear with these cross borders issues in mind. If I was living in the US, I would have ordered a combo 990/??amp by now. For now I'm still on the fence.
Anyways, when did you get your 990/7125?
What are your impressions?
What other gear did you consider buying before deciding on Outlaw?
What was the deciding factor to go Outlaw?...best value for the cost?
Please share your thoughts if you can....good day ehh!

hello tweeterman

well i talked to some rep. this monday from ups and apparently all my problems are over and the black mark has been retracted from my credit rating, however im sure the next step will be the repo man coming to the door to take the 990 away. I truly dislike ,no actually i hate UPS , what a bunch of disorganized fools.

I got my 990/7125 around march of this year.

My first impressions were very good, a definite step up from my Yamaha 2500.
Currently im running my Toshiba HDA1 through the analog 7.1 inputs . I like this setup the best so far , everything sounds smoother , clear and more natural. A little better than the optical connection i was using on the oppo971.

Before I purchased the Outlaw i checked all the usual favourites, But what swayed me was the great service i recieved from another internet based store , Axiom Audio.
The speakers and service i received from axiom was top notch . I expecially liked the idea of a company that was totally dependent on good word of mouth, that spoke volumes to me.
So this is why I chose Outlaw overall, because they have to deliver a good product and good service or their ship is sunk.
I read somewhere that if you use ups air the border duties are less, im not sure if this is true but it may be a consideration.
Time to eat some ketchup potatoe chips and watch the hockey game.

Going back to Tweeterman's remark on 10/17 about consumers conditioned to accept that "you get what you pay for", and Gonk's "TANSTAAFL": I suggest the two ideas can be combined into the principle that if you're lucky or dealing with the right folks you might indeed get what you pay for - but you always pay for what you get.
Unless of course you steal it.