I'm in the market for a home theater system and a friend of mine told me to check out the Outlaw 1050. I had been looking at the Sony STR-DE975. The 1050 looks like a more solid product, but just what does the Outlaw bring to the table over any of the Sony products?
Thanks,
Fletch

Look on http://www.audioreview.com Then let me know what Sony brings to the table over the outlaw products. You will quickly find that the advertised output of the sony seems overrated while the outlaw seems underrated.

Good luck

------------------
Stott

Fletch --

I took a look at the specs for the Sony. From what I could tell, it is feature-for-feature very comparable to the 1050 (with a few exceptions that I'll note below).

The Sony lists as having more power, but I (as with what I believe to be a very large majority of the Outlaw owners here in the forum) will credit the 1050 with what you might call "hidden reserves" of power -- it's a very potent 65W.

Also, the specs for the Sony include something called Virtual Matrix 6.1, but the rear panel picture ( found one on Crutchfield ) doesn't include binding posts for a center surround and I don't see a clearly indicated line level output for a separate amp for that channel (although there is a somewhat unlabeled output about the LFE output that might be a center surround). That matches with the 110Wx5 rating -- if they are producing a center surround channel of some sort, they're not making it easy to do anything with it. There's also a noticeable lack of pre-amp outs, meaning that adding separate amplification later isn't an option (as I've done just that this year, I'll rank that as a drawback to the Sony, but if you're never going to add an amp it might not be relevent).

The Sony has an phono input, which the Outlaw lacks. If you are still spinning records, that might be a factor. If you are very "hard-core" about turntables, though, you will likely choose to go with a phono pre-amp anyway, making the phono input useless.

The Sony has on-screen display. As someone who is not real fond of some of Sony's stuff, I will simply offer my personal opinion (and it's just me, mind you). I would personally prefer the Outlaw's interface (which uses the front panel display to set everything in a very intuitive manner) and keep any on-screen display circuitry out of the video signal path over the Sony's OSD. Part of this is a sense that the Outlaw 1050's display is more informative and useful than the Sony's more cluttered display and front panel.

Did any of that help?

Thanks for your input. I will be the proud owner of a 1050 very shortly! I can't wait to hear this product.
Fletch