Once again I have to state how great Steve and Outlaw customer service is!!!!! I was having buzzing issues with my original 990. After trying just about everything under the sun to get rid of the buzz, I spent an hour on the phone with Steve going thru everything one more time. Towards the end of the phone call, Steve told me he wanted to check some things out on his end and get back to me.

He called me a couple of hours later to tell me a replacement 990 was on its way and would be delivered to me the next day which is SATURDAY (today)!!!!! At 1:00, Fed Ex knocked on my door and I had the 990. I just hooked everything up and there is no buzz whatsoever. Now I finally get to evaluate the 990 and compare it to my first LOVE, the B&K 3090 (which died about 6 weeks ago).

Thanks again Steve and OUTLAW. I can not say enough great things about you.

josh

- Glad to hear you got it up and running!

Josh aka Wildwolf, first off congrats on the 990. it's quite the pre amp. It's my first true pre amp i've owne.

I do have to ask though.. are you planning to get your B&K 3090 fixed? Sounds like it would be worth it.

I tried to fix the 3090...I brought it to the highend audio repair guy in my area. The chip died and B&K does not offer a replacement board due to the fact that it is 10 years old. The technician said the chip could be manually removed but there is a heat sink on top of it with over 100 tiny pins in it. he would need to remove each pin by hand and the labor would be enormous. In the end- it is not worth fixing.

If the 990 does not work for me, I will prbably go with the ref 50 from B&K but there is a substantial price difference. I always enjoyed the demonstration Outlaw puts on at the Hilton in New York City during the audio show there in the Spring.

So far so good.....the 990 is quiet and has plenty of options. I am still not sure about the highs coming out of it, though. My ears are very sensitive and I enjoy a mellow (smooth) treble. That is one of the reasons I went with the Sonus Faber speakers (silk dome tweeter and rich midrange). I really haven't put it thru a serious workout yet. My wife will want to kill me after this upcoming week

Josh, it never stops does it? The tweaking i mean. ha ha.

well from my experience changing out interconnets can also help tame or add detail to the final sound. What type of interconnects are you using?

I tried pure silver IC's before.. and while they are very detailed.. it was to much to bear.. it was to much of a good thing. So after about two months, I had to replace them with what i am using now.. Silver over copper wire... retained the detail, but smoothed out the high end treble. It is the best of both world.

Raymond Cables these are what i use. I found this guy local to me that builds these. He's very knowledgeable about cable design and what different types of wires add or detract from the sound.

I own and have tried many different cables with my B&K. The ones that sounded best to me were the monster 990's. I don't believe Monster makes these anymore. In any case- I will switch out interconnects towards the end of the week to see if it makes a difference. In my experience, the interconnects can tweak the sound a bit but they can't alter it all that much.

I have yet to put on a cd and listen to music thru the 990. I have only watched Elmopalooza with my 2 year old and 5th Element broadcast on TNTHD yesterday evening. I have "V is for Vendetta" waiting for me and my usual collection of DVD's I need to go thru. Natalie Merchant and Sting are a good reference for my ears. I need to pull these cd's out of the car tomorrow.

Skyblazer...what is in your system besides the 990?

Josh,

I hope you will be as impressed as I was listening to music on the 990 in bypass or upsample mode.. the first time I had my Marantz CC4300 CDP hooked up via coax cable.. it sounded flat and muddy.

I decided to go with interconnects from IXOS and it made a very noticeible difference in sound quality. I was amazed by the openness and soundstage with the 990 in 2 ch music.

The rest of my system is
Fronts - Polk RT800i's
center - Polk CS400i (matches fronts in drivers)
surround Polk FX./300i in bi pole mode
sub is a older Adire Audio Dharman sub with a SVS 12.2 driver. It's a big box sub.. measures 22x22x22

Fronts are powered with a Adcom 5400 125wpc,
center and surrounds are powered with Marantz MA500 mono block amps. same 125wpc each

That's the HT... mixture of those Raymond interconnects, IXOS and Signal Cable IC's, front speaker wire is Cobalt Cable cables bi-wired.

AL

very nice. I like the polks. I am also using the MA500 monoblocks for my center and surround until I get my Aragon Fixed. Then I will use just two of them for the surrounds.

Is the sub tight on music? I have an SVS Plus sub in my other system but it is much better suited for home theater than music.

I agree... the SVS is better suited for home theater than music.. I don't always like having the sub on for music... it can be tough to dial in. If i do have the sub on while listening to music, it's usually very low.

I also have three other 2 channel only systems i use more for music anyways.. so the home theater isn't use that often for music.