Seven M200s or One 7700??

Just wondering if anyone had any opinion on this?

I already have two of the M200s driving my RS750 Rockets. Totally killer. I am uping the ante with the 990 and if I'm gonna upgrade . . .well why not add some more power? My surrounds are being driven by an 5-ch Anthem (which I love!) but I got another room to start working on. It gets all the upgrades of course.

Thanks!

Herb

I would think that would have alot to do with speaker efficiency. Having separate amps is generally better because of the physics of sharing a transformer under load, reserve power, damping factor, etc.. Unless maybe you buy a giant brute, like the 790.

Sounds like the monos are driving the left and right front channel. If so, likely its the center channel that needs it. Truely, most surrounds are running under 20 watts. The center channel carries a lot of the sound in a movie anyway, more than most think.

I would like to see Outlaw come out with a 7 channel amp that had 4x100 and 3x200 watts. Or possibly an 85 to 100 watt monoblock for $150 bucks. Then you could mix monos.

I just bought two of the 200's from a guy on audiogon. He is using the 200 mono's all around and loves them. I got the extra two, he was going to bi-amp, but decided against it, didn't need the extra power. We corresponded for a bit
and he is very pleased with the individual amping.
He would recommend it to anyone. I think Gonk is another who would recommend, can't really speak for him tough.

Which amp did Outlaw use to showcase the 990 at HE2005? Hmmmmmm

I'm very fond of my M200's, each of which drives a Paradigm Studio/60. In my case, I selected them because I already had a five-channel amp (the Model 750) and needed two more channels. Some folks have gone with the "super-stack" of M200's (seven separate power supplies, redundancy in case one channel fails), while many others have simply picked up the 770 (one box instead of seven, one more cord instead of seven). Both routes are very safe bets. If I were doing it from scratch, I'd probably go with the 770 just for convenience (or possibly the 755 and a pair of M200's).

Oh, and Keta's question may be somewhat rhetorical, but at HE2005 the 990 was paired up with a 770.

Yes it was a rhetorical question, but someone did make the decision to go with the 770 over a stack of 200's. I'm not sure of the rational but you can bet that if the M200 had a sonic advantage, that is what would have been used to drive the AT speakers.

I do own the 770 but not the M200's although I do have a pair oh NHT A1's which I believe to be the fraternal twin (with some added features)to the M200. I have not done an intentional comparison but sonically I don't notice a difference between the 770 and A1. I do think the A1 has some physical noise from the transformer and some M200's may have this issue also. The 770 has always been stone quiet.

If you were going to drag equipment to a trade show, all other things being equal would you want to take seven pieces that had to be plugged in individually or one unit witha single outlet requirement....just a thought!

Ed

As others have mentioned, it was plugs that kept me from going the mono block route. I am sure you will be pleased with either, choose what you prefer.

What about the fact that one can buy seven M200s for about $100.00 less plus get free shipping.

My statement was a response to the comment that inferred that since the 770 was used to demo the 990 at the show that the 770 was better. I don't know this to be the case, but if it were me dragging equipment to a show I would certainly prefer 1 unit to 7. That being said, I run 6 of the M200s and love them. I can't compare the sound directly to the 770 but from the statements I have read by those who have compared them to other outlaw amps the M200 was a sonic match. I personally think they are a great audio bargain.

Ed

My comment was not meant to infer that the 770 was superior to 7 M200's but rather the opposite which is the M200's are not, due to their monoblock design, superior to the 770 design. My statement was meant to show that if there was a any benefit to having the monoblocks driving the AT 8200 ($13,000) speakers then that is what the Outlaws would have used.