Can someone tell me the diferences beteween the 970 and 990 besides the balanced outputs . Seems they are almost identicle and I'm leaning towards the 970 .
Sorry if this has been dicussed already but I don't frequint this forum much .

If I decide on the Outlaw stuff though you won't get rid of me

The 990 has a couple of more inputs plus the auto setup routine. If you want the best sound quatity possible from an Outlaw product, get the 990. If you need a phono input, get the 990. If you are going to do alot of stereo listening get the 990.

The 970 is an excellent product also. I would say the if you budget is tight and none of the above apply get the 970. If you are primarily going to do TV/Movie watching get the 970. I would say that the 970 compares favorably with Rotel & B&K where the 990 comparres more with the Anthem/Arcam family of processors in terms of sound quality.

I own a 970.

This has been covered extensively, but the above is my synopsis.

Regards,

Charlie

Thanks Charlie

They both sound like a winner from what you compare them to and price factor .

DOJ,

You might want to take a look at the review I did with these two units and a Yamaha 2500 here:

http://processors.dblattman.com

I assume you are the same DOJ from the AV123 forum? If so, I would be really curious to see how the Outlaw gear stacks up against the Big Dogs.

Regards!

Hang on guys, I don't get it. Both processors use identical DAC's, etc. Both have a true by-pass and the 970 even enables you to have an anolog crossover option, so why does the 990 sound better? Because it's more expensive? The one area I've not seen discussed is video performance and this is where I've heard the 970 falls a little short. What am I missing?

The 970 and 990 use the same Cirrus DSP chip (the 49400), but they do not use the same DAC's. The 990 offers higher quality DAC's, which are a big part of why the 990 can sound better.

The 970's video switching had a software bug at the time that Doug did his testing, but that was resolved back before Christmas (after he'd finished his shoot-out). I don't know that there's any problem with the 970's video performance currently.

Doug , I'm the same DOJ I did'nt read the review yet. Short on time but I'll print it off and read it later .

Thanks for the link .