First post on this forum.

I've been saving my nickles and dimes and was all ready to order the 990/7125 combo this week (a bit of budget stress)and then the 970 comes out. Now I'm in a real quandry.

I don't have a need for balanced outputs but I do have a turntable (and about 1,000 vinyl discs)and like the second zone of the 990 to hook up for listening on the back patio, but a $300 savings is sweet plus the monster size of the 990, especially the 17.75 depth, is gonna be a problem in my present rack.

Guys, anyone have any thoughts/remarks that would help me make a decision in the next day or so? I'd like to place my order with Outlaw this week. Thanks in advance.

mzpro5,

Welcome to the forum. Right now all anyone really has is the paper specs of both units to go by. Noone has a 970 yet and has evaluated its performance. If you definately want second zone capability and a phono input, I think your choice is clear though. Go with the 990. If these aren't that important (I would think the phono is with 1000+ records though -- you could always pick up a cheap receiver for patio listening) think about the 970.

MZ, my first post as well!

I was never interested in Outlaw products as I did not like their looks and knew nothing of their performance. Now I am very interested.

I had the same quandry as I wanted to play some vinyl as well and pump some music to the deck, but I just received a phono preamp yesterday that would plug into the 970 that I ordered months ago for a low $65. I like spending $300 less, but I really want good 2 channel sound as well and the 990 chip set is reportedly better and now I'm considering just-going-for-it and combo with the 7125 amp.

The 970 doesn't support upsampling the 990 does.

Also the 970 has analog bass management at 80 hertz if you have an SACD or DVD-Audio player without proper bass management (virtually all of them suck at this)

Interestingly the Cirrus chip supports MP3 decoding but the 1070/970 doesn't expose it. Probably a marketing decision on Outlaw's part (don't want to step on the 990's features too much).

Also in the pdf link it says it does DVD-Audio/SACD bass management (probably ADC/DAC work on the analog signal, yuck!).

Here is the link: http://www.cirrus.com/en/products/pro/detail/P1031.html.

Welcome to this little corner of the 'net, mzpro5 and Big Red Machine. You certainly popped in at an interesting time - I suspect this it just the beginning of the many discussions we'll be having here regarding which is a better choice between teh 970 and the 990. It'll probably take a month or so to get enough first-hand feedback to move the debate beyond theory, but there's already some pretty useful information floating around to help folks make up their minds. Mzpro5, if you happened to already have an old receiver to handle patio duties and didn't mind spending a bit of money on a decent phono pre-amp, the 970 could be a good fit (especially if the 2.25" of extra space behind the unit helps you out), but if you can handle the depth and the MM phono section works with your turntable I suspect the 990 would put quite a smile on your face. For me, the added depth wasn't too big a deal - I'd already had to chop the back off my cabinet for the 950 (even though it's not even as deep as the 970) so I could have access to the rear panel, and I just enlarged the hole a bit. It actually gave me a reason to clean up the cut. Your mileage may vary in this regard, though.

That MP3 support is probably very rarely implemented - you have to have a way to get MP3 files to the chipset, and that's not a real easy process. DVD players generally decode MP3's internally and output PCM, and while the 990's USB input acts as a USB sound card I'm still pretty sure from my experience that the MP3 decoding happens at the PC's media player. You could build in an ethernet interface of some sort so that the processor becomes a network media client, in which case the MP3 decoding would be quite handy, but otherwise I doubt it's very often used.

990 is too large to fit into my Audio Rack... Final decision made.. 970 for me.!

A really good CD player put into the unit on Analog Byass should handle the Audio difference in the two.

First I want to thank you guys for the info while I was making a decision and this should probably go on the 990 forum but this is where I started:

I finally stopped procrastinating and odered the Outlaw 990/7125 combo this afternoon. I considered the new 970 but spent the extra $300 and went with the 990 because:

phono input: I have a pretty good turntable and 1,000 vinyl discs, might as well use them

second zone: Like the idea of running to patio with the second zone

listening habits: I do alot of 2 channel music listening and from the little I have been able to find in comparison it seems like the 990 will offer better sound in 2 channel

proven record: though I have little doubt the 970 will be a very fine pre/pro the already proven history of the 990 held a bit of weight in the decision

Thanks again for your help.

I have been debating between 1070 and 990. Ordered 970 on Monday and it will be here tomorrow the 8th. It is cheap enough to try as I did not need some of the other features found in 990. I hope it sounds better than my Sony STRDA777ES receiver.

One difference not previously noted between the 970 and 990 is the warranty. The 970 has a two year warranty and the 990 has a five year warranty. One reason I turned to Outlaw products is because I was tired of two year warranties, so for me that would be a factor to consider.

I think I saw a post from Scott saying that the 970 warranty was actually three years (the manual apparently had a typo in it), but you do have a point.