Dear audiophiles:
I am a total “newcomer” in the Home Theatre domain considering buying my first set of separates (pre/pro and power amp) for 7.1 setup and do need a little help. My budget for pre/pro and power amp is only about $3000, unfortunately enough…
Many contributors highly recommended Outlaw 950 pre/pro model over many others. Quite frankly, I have my doubts in this regard: as far as I understand, this device is not able to decode new formats like HDCD, Dolby Headphone, DTS 96/24, Dolby Pro Logic IIx, and it is not possible to upgrade the software this model comes with (?!).
I was very impressed with the sound quality of Anthem AVM-20 / PVA-7 combo with KEF Q7 speakers, but the price is too high for me… A friend of mine (not a seasoned specialist himself, I am afraid) recommended to consider the following units from Adcom GTP-860II preamp/7607 poweramp, Sherwood Newcastle P965 preamp/A965 poweramp or NAD T163 preamp/ T973 poweramp. I think Rotel offers something as well. Outlaw has some power amplifiers too: 770, 7100. Far too many choices… Consequently I am totally and completely lost and do need your help badly indeed!

Respectfully,
John

P.S. Is it advisable to mix components from different manufacturers: Sherwood Newcastle P965 preamp and Outlaw 770 poweramp, for example?

P.-p.S. What are the most important specs to look for? Are the following parameters important?
THD <0.1% at rated power
Frequency response of say 5 Hz-100 kHz
Output impedance: <0.4 ohm
Damping factor: >100
Input impedance: >10 k ohms
IMD should probably be roughly that of the THD.

i dare not get into a discussion about the best pre/pro available. however mixing brands of gear is perfectly acceptable. specs really reveal little about the quality of a unit, however you seem to be interested in a certain set of features, so to find those features in a pre/pro available right now is going to seriously limit the field of candidates. which is good, because then you will have less choices...

thd is something good to look at for amps, .1% is not that low though. basically an amp needs a big power supply, big capacitors, good heat sinks, decent engineering to be good.

ill let you decide about the pre/pro because theyre arent too many that would have the features that you want anyway.

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This post has been brought to you by curegeorg, thanks for reading.

As curegeorg noted, there is no problem with mixing different manufacturers' products (such as an Outlaw amp and a different company's pre/pro).

Also as curegeorg points out, getting into a "what's the best pre/pro" debate on a manufacturer's forum can be a bit of a hot potato. You might want to look at this chart , and of course some people have chosen to use a receiver as a pre/pro (receivers are more likely to get the latest surround processing first because they come from the larger companies that can afford the fast-track design costs). There are some alternatives to chose from.

The 950 may not offer the decoding modes you mentioned (Dolby Headphone, DTS 96/24, or Pro Logic IIx), but it is still a very respectable value. Also, it is worth noting that some of those formats are not new, but have seen very slow adoption in hardware and/or limited software support. HDCD, for example, has been around for many, many years, but in general HDCD decoding is handled at the CD player and even after all these years it can be difficult to find HDCD encoded discs (I think I have one in my library of 200+ discs).

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

While I'm already a 950 owner and not looking to make a decision, I've still thought, "What am I missing by not having these new or slow-to-be-adopted formats?" Until there is a significant percentage of titles coming out with formats I want but can't handle, I'm not missing anything.

John- Of all the brands you mentioned, the best choice is Sherwood Newcastle. Their combination is the best right now for the money under $3,500.

The NAD T163 is a great pre-pro for only $1500. It costs the same as the Newcastle. However to get the NAD T973 would cost you $2499. That would push you $1000 over your budget.

The Newcastle combo is the best combo right now, and to understand why, you first must understand who Sherwood Newcastle is. They are the biggest OEM in the world, and they make the equipment you see from Harmon Kardon, Yamaha, and others. OEM is where they make their money. The Sherwood and Sherwood Newcastle lines are their shot at their own piece of the market. By not having to outsource to an OEM or by covering for their own build costs they can release product at what is called an "unfair competitive advantage," in the business world. The Sherwood Newcastles cost less than the competition with much higher quality.

Just like Outlaw. Except Sherwood's product is currently newer, so they have more bells and whistles. Both Outlaw and Sherwood suffer from long delays in product releases or replacement. The Outlaw Receiver has been off the market for a year, and its replacement wont be out until next year (likely). Sherwood took something like 6 years between their pre-amp.

The NAD does sound 33% better to my ears. This is because the NAD amp is better than the Newcastle. Is it worth 33% more in cost? That is up to you.

I'd suggest buying the Sherwood Newcastle Pre-Pro and combining it with either the Sherwood Amp or the 7100 if you want to save money for NICE interconnects. Don't spend $2,500+ on equipment and then connect them together with Monster Cable products for instance. There are much better interconnects out there.

There's good advice here and above also. You don't have to buy the amp from the same company as the pre-pro. Outlaw really does have the best deals when it comes to multi-channel amps. Get the processor that suites your needs and then get a good amp. That's the advantage of seperates.

If you're still waiting, I would wait for the 1070. I have the 1050 and I haven't gotten around to upgrading the amplifier section yet. It provides good enough amplification on its own. But if you need more power, it does have pre-amp outs for that purpose. I think you might be surprised but just how powerful the 1070 will be. It might actually be enough for your needs and then you have more budget for other things, like better speakers.

Good luck!!

sherwood is junk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i also dont buy the notion that they oem for the likes of hk (a lexicon company).
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This post has been brought to you by curegeorg, thanks for reading.

[This message has been edited by curegeorg (edited June 21, 2004).]

I would not call a statement like "They are the biggest OEM in the world, and they make the equipment you see from Harmon Kardon, Yamaha, and others" a "notion". It's either true or false. Fact or fiction.

Now since I've never really heard much about Sherwood Newcastle before I figure one of the easiest things to do would be to check out their web site to see what they are saying about themselves. So here's what they claim: "it is an industry secret that Sherwood is the actual manufacturer of nearly one-third of the world's high performance receivers."

Hmmm. Smoking gun?

That's a pretty bold statement to make on a web site - especially since you know you could be challenged on it. And since some of that 1/3 just might includes the likes of Yamaha and HK, I think my money is riding on Sherwood / lotus_j. Especially since neither of them claimed that Lexicon owns HK!

Could this also mean that Sherwood Newcastle is not junk?

Jeff Mackwood

so you are trying to say that lexicon and harman kardon are not owned by the same parent company....? lol, there are more than those two in the company that owns them both... plus i said SHERWOOD is junk, i have not seen/used a SHERWOOD NEWCASTLE product, but i wouldnt expect much of them either.

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This post has been brought to you by curegeorg, thanks for reading.

curegeorg,

Sorry. I guess the english language is used differently down your way. Because up here "hk(a lexicon company)" is equivalent to "lexicon owns hk."

I never would have guessed that you meant "hk and lexicon are owned by the same parent company." Sorry for so obviously not getting it right.

I also guess that since the previous posts' comments were in reference to Sherwood Newcastle, when you blurted out "Sherwood is junk" that was just some sort of Dean Scream. You could have just as easily have been talking about Bose, or Ladas, or Civil War bonds, it appears.

Once again I'm sorry for so poorly catching on to what you were so obviously saying.

I won't let it happen again.

Jeff Mackwood

chuckle

jeff,
i hope not.
sherwood and sherwood newcastle are made by the same company so i would expect similar traits from both of these lines. pointing out that sherwood is junk could give some insight into the performance of sherwood newcastle. just as lexicon and hk share similar technologies by being designed by the same people, you could presume that the sherwoods would be also. however the difference is lexicon companies are good and sherwood companies are not. sometimes companies that make crap can also make candy, but not too often. usually bad design plagues their whole line because much more time is spent in developing the top line and then they let what they found there trickle down to the others. if what the others are getting is junk, then you can certainly expect the products above them are junk as well. further if a company was self-respecting (i.e. put out high end products that were well regarded) then they would not let themselves produce such an inferior line, and instead focus of what makes them so great (the forementioned high end product) rather than waste time with inferior products.
oh and harman international has a couple more companies in it than lexicon and harman kardon, however they are huge, so the correlation between their different brands is less, but still obvious to most people.

www.harman.com to check it out for yourself:

mark levinson
revel
hk
lexicon
infinity
jbl

just to name a few. all on the list are pretty well respected. the list on sherwoods site is of a whole other class imo. but hey, what do i know?, my last name isnt mackwood.

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This post has been brought to you by curegeorg, thanks for reading.

I know nothing about Sherwood, so I can't speak to that topic, but I do question the accuracy of saying that Harman Kardon products and Lexicon products come from the same designers. Lexicon was an independent company that was acquired by Harman International; it is one of a collection of companies that are under the umbrella of the Harman Specialty Group, which is a division of Harman International. Harman Kardon is a (or, perhaps more accurately, the central) subsidiary of Harman International. While the knowledge within the Lexicon area would be available to HK engineers in some form (such as the availability of select portions of the Logic7 processing for HK products), it certainly is not a direct link and does not assure that the skilled engineers at Lexicon will assure any aptitude on the part of the HK designers.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

you would be remiss to think that the engineerning that goes on at lexicon is so different than that at hk. ideas and people are something that those two in particular share in common.

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This post has been brought to you by curegeorg, thanks for reading.

While several companies may share a parent co., the people and their design philosophies are not automatically indiginous to each other. The co. I work for owns several different subsidiaries, none of which has a clue as to how we design our products. I routinely spec. components from our "Sister" companies, never needing to fully understand how or why they were designed, only that they will give me the desired service factors. I would never need to know how to design a bearing, for instance, yet I know one or more exists that will fill my design goal. A parent company exists to own sub-companies which are profitable and may be able to work in tandem to solve certain problems thus creating more profitability.

i agree, and so if one company makes a product that is poor and it is used throughout the system of companies then they COULD all be labeled as poor. kind of my point, just stated differently. the interaction of the companies under one bigger company yields a more homogenous product, because who cares how something works it just works for what i need it to. which is why for example hk, would use logic7, even if they didnt invent it. that is a good example, now imagine the other side of that. a company makes a part (or whatever) and it is in turn passed along to other subsidaries under them and then it turns out that that part is of poor quality. so if say harman international holds an interest/owns all of these companies that make excellend products, then everything is great because they all benefit, but if say sherwood does the same thing then the story is different. anyway/.

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This post has been brought to you by curegeorg, thanks for reading.