Ok I am pretty ignorant about audio and need some clarification on a couple of issues about the 1070. I have searched this forum and several AVS forums and have read a bunch of posts about the 1070. But still have the following questions.

I will be using a pair of 14 year old Advent speakers as the rear surround for now. I want to make sure they can work ok with the 1070. The documentation I found on them says 6 to 8 Ohms. Will the 1070 be able to control them ok ?

Some of the cheaper receivers I have been comparing to the outlaw offer THX processing. How much will I miss the 1070 not providing this surround mode ?

There isn't an auto setup with the 1070 and I have been reading how to do it with a SPL meter. But it seems kind of daunting. Is it really that hard and where can I find some more info on how to do it.

Looking at buying the following Outlaw 1070, HSU VTF-3 MK3, Oppo DV-981HD and Aperion Audio speakers.

The room is approximately 3400 cubic feet and there are photos here of the layout.

http://www.pbase.com/gandalf/tempsports

Any and all advice is certainly appreciated.

Thanks
George

The 1070 should handle those Advents just fine.

The absence of THX processing isn't going to hurt you. THX was originally useful because it provided an assurance of good design, with a few processing options mixed in. There are a number of companies building gear that is good enough to pass the THX certification (examples would include Outlaw and Rotel, but there are others as well) but elect not to get THX certification to save money. Don't sweat it.

The setup with an SPL meter is not actually a big deal. The Outlaw manuals include some good instructions on the process. Basically, you switch to an unused input, set the volume to "0dB", set the meter to C-weighting and Slow, turn it on and set it to the 70Hz range, start the test tones, and adjust each channel so the needle hovers around +5 dB (or set it to the 80Hz range and aim for around -5dB, whichever is easier). Don't let it intimidate you.

That setup sounds like a lot of fun!

Gonk, thanks for the quick reply, the THX part is still confusing me. It thought it was a surround mode like Dolby and that the 1070 didn't support it ?

The setup with the SPL doesn't sound too bad. I was over on the AVS forum reading how to use it to configure the HSU sub and they got a lot deeper than that, going into using a pc to chart the sound waves.

I want the system to sound good, but I am not going to want to fool with it to that level.

I am still thinking that this is a lot of money to spend by a guy that in that past hasn't even bothered to have rear speakers. Oh well hopefully once I have it setup It will be worth it.

Thanks again.

THX offers several things: surround processing (which is more like Pro Logic IIx, in that it works on top of Dolby Digital, DTS, and other source formats) and some performance standards. Most of the cost in implementing THX is in the standards verification (testing and such).

The guy using a PC to dial in his sub was probably using RoomEQWizard to compensate for room effects and apply equalization. It's a cool technique, but not normal procedure.

The 1070 isn't chump change, but Outlaw builds some mighty fine stuff. There's some good bang to that buck. Let us know what other questions you might have.

Gonk, working my way through your excellent web pages. They are helping explain a lot of things.

One final question. So if I have a DVD with THX sound encoding the 1070 won't support playing it ? Or am I still confused and THX is just a hardware certification standard and it's really just Dolby Digital encoding with a fancy name ?

See I always loved the THX intro in the old movies in the 80ies and to me is high end surround sound. Whether that's right or not that's just what I always thought. And I don't like the idea that the 1070 might not be able to play it.

Thanks

George

There are no DVD's with THX encoding, because there is no THX encoding. All DVD's use either Dolby Digital (with varying number of channels up to 5.1 and sometimes with matrix decoding cues for Dolby EX), DTS (typically 5.1 and sometimes ES for a sixth channel), or in a few rare cases (usually music) PCM stereo. The 1070 will handle all of those formats just fine.

There are DVD's that are THX certified, but that ended up being a pretty meaningless certification (aside from the somewhat useful Opticode test patterns that still can't replace a good calibration disc and the cool THX intro) - they let some iffy video transfers through while there were a ton of great transfers that weren't THX certified. The THX processing on receivers is entirely unrelated to that, anyway, as it instead deals with theater compensation and some other issues (layered on top of Dolby Digital originally, with DTS support added somewhere along the way). And of course there are also a couple layers of THX to consider (Select and Ultra, or these days Select 2 or Ultra 2) which affects both performance and software.

Hey that cleared it up. Thanks

Gonk ordered the 1070 and told the Outlaw team they need to give you a discount for the excellent help you provide here in the forums. Still reading through your web pages the are a lot of help, especially the wiring diagram one.

Sure was hard to pull the trigger on spending this much money, hopefully I will enjoy the results.

Thanks

Cool! I think you'll enjoy it. You know where to come if you run into questions during setup...