This caught my eye:

Essentially for the same current sale price as the 990/7125. I could buy the 7125 and purchase this Onkyo.

I'm not trying to insult the 990, but what could possibly make the 2005 990 better than the above 2007 receiver in terms of sound quality?

Or am I missing the point entirely?

The indecision continues.

Two questions and one comment occur to me:
Q1. The list doesn't mention a tuner - does the Onkyo have one?
Q2. Likewise for a phono input.
To some of us anything with no phono input or tuner would be a non-starter regardless of any other features.
Comment: You ask about sound quality, but it's not mentioned on the list - nor could it be. No sound quality judgment can be made without actual listening.

A few things remain unknown. First, how does the receiver sound? Feature lists like this don't offer much insight into that. The quality of the DAC is an important issue - after all, you can get most of the features of the 990 in much less expensive receivers right now, but they won't sound as good even with outboard amplification. To put it another way, you could compare that Onkyo's feature set to the feature set of a Lexicon MC-8 and the Onkyo would seem to have a huge edge in spite of the MC-8's $6000 price tag - but I'd consider it safe to say that the MC-8 would certainly sound much better, particularly for music.

Another thought - HDMI v1.3 is so new it's extremely unexplored territory, and some of these decoders (TrueHD, DTS HD Master Audio, and Dolby Digital Plus which isn't actually mentioned in that feature list) are also pretty new. At this point, we have no DTS HD Master Audio decoders in any consumer products. The first folks to get hardware to market are going to have a serious challenge on their hands to get all the kinks worked out.

The Onkyo could be interesting in terms of features and sound -- up until you get to the amplifier. The 7125 will likely smoke the amp in the receiver.

Sorry to go back and forth so much, but I'm now debating between these:

Outlaw 990 pro/7125 amp = $1,800 ($1,900 after May 10th)

versus

Denon Professional DN-A7100 pro / 2 Tapco Juice 1400 amps (fronts/rears) / 1 Outlaw 2200 monoblock (center) = $1,800+/-

This way I could have the flex to build the system over time, like buy the Denon pro and and 1 Juice for 2CH (@ 1,200) ...then later the monoblock for 3CH...then finally add 1 more Juice for 5CH.

With the Outlaw combo I'd have to blow all that cash at once. The Denon 7100 appears to be a superior processor feature-wise too (HDMI for one thing), and the Juice/Outlaw amp combo would yield more power than the 125Wx7 Outlaw 7125.

I know, I have a tough time with commitment.

Oops..double post.

Since we're in the midst of a server migration, I'll quote myself rather than linking...
The balanced outputs can be configured to serve as unbalanced outputs, but you'll have to do a bit of hunting to find the right cables. I'm just leery of it, probably because it feels like something with HDMI tucked in as an afterthought (unlike the way Anthem thoroughly integrated HDMI into the AVM-40/50 and Statement D2). If you are serious about having HDMI but need something now, you might even be best off getting an inexpensive HDMI v1.x receiver with pre-amp outputs that you can sell in a year or so and starting to pick up some amps (either a single multichannel amp like the 7125 or a few two-channel amps like the Tapco Juice's and monoblocks like the M2200) to tide you over until companies like Outlaw, Sherwood, Rotel, and others get HDMI v1.3 processors to market.

Thanks gonk!

I'm just afriad that eventually the industry as a whole will pull something with HDMI in general that renders multi-analog useless, even though I know this is far-fetched.

Also the WAF factor, despite the display and speaker set-up in total costing clear over $1k, the Outlaw 990/7125 combo is a terribly tough sell for the misses to take.

I'm just gonna have to stick to my guns and aim for the Outlaws...eventually.

Would you really feel comfortable owning something that was named Onkyo? Be wise, be careful and choose well.

Cheers

Just a word of warning; Don't get fooled by power numbers when it comes to amplifier specs. Just because one amplifier is rated higher in supplying wattage doesn't mean that it's going to sound better than an amplifier that doesn't have as high a power rating. It's more important to match your amplifier with your speakers and your room.

Speaking of speakers; what kind are you using?