Interesting 990 comparison

We have had recent hot debates regarding the 990 compared to Anthem's/Lexicons/etc...

This is a very interesting comparison of the 990 to the AVM-20.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=5748243#post5748243

I highly suggest you to read and contribute your comparison findings on this thread.

Very interesting thread, braidkid... Thanks for the link.

That thread's starting to get kind of nasty, with one participant calling the Outlaw equipment "Chinese junk."

People get ridiculous about this stuff.

Yeah well how smart can he be . We all know it is really Korean junk afterall .

KIDDING OF COURSE .

LOL, I said the same thing to George in that thread.

Glad to hear that Cliff . That guy apparently buys into the theory the more dollars spent the better it has to be .

The question you should ask yourself (relative to that guy George's post) is would I rather buy an overpriced piece of Canadian junk (to support some overpaid Canuck's beer and pretzel habit), or an inexpensive piece of Korean junk (to support some poor Korean keep himself in kimchee).

People were saying these sort of things about Japanese cars in the early 1970s until it became obvious that not only were Japanese cars not inferior in quality to vehicles made in North America, they were actually superior in quality and less expensive too!

I'm not saying that the Anthem doesn't make a fine piece of equipment, but running down Outlaw based upon it's being manufactured in the far east displays a bit of bigotry, don't you think?

Hey CJL1138,
I have been to McKinney, TX. Shopped a ski store there.

I used to have a lot of respect for Robert George but he flushed it all away with that comment. I think it is just a bit of insecurity that maybe the 990 is as good as the Anthem.

What happened to sound and bang for the buck! If it's a political war I am not interested..

Amen Trikos, and my apologies to any who took offence at my attempt at satirizing the remarks from the AVS forum.

Never underestimate people's defensiveness when the reputation of their expensive toys are on the line. Because, you know, you're less of a man if all of those "hobbyist losers" with their inexpensive imported Asian gear think their stuff sounds as good as your boutique Canadian gear. :rolleyes:

I'm not knocking Anthem or any other company for that matter. I'm just sort of fed up with people's attitudes. I'm an Outlaw owner, but I don't necessarily think they make the absolute best gear on the planet bar none (like some might). But I do happen to feel they offer a lot of value. Sure, I like drooling over some of the boutique stuff because it's often very pretty or very well made, or indeed even sounds better than my gear. But having other expensive hobbies means drawing the line somewhere, and I don't feel like I'm compromising too much by going with Outlaw. On the contrary, I feel like my money is pretty well spent.

Well said! I agree completely.

Cary

Prefect, that is a perfect post! Very well said. I tend to stay at this board and AV123's because the level of immaturity/insecurity this hobby seems to bring out in some grown adults is regrettable.

Indeed, as someone who used to follow his "Obi's Reviews" column on a regular basis, it is truly disappointing to read Robert's bigoted comments (not to mention his ad hominem laced follow-up).

On the positive side, I thought that a lot of effort and care was put into making sure that the comparison was done as fairly as possible (short of having one of those ABX boxes available). Cary was open to suggestions from other posters and candid about methodology; can't ask anything for more.

I like AVS because there are a lot of very knowledgable posters over there. It seems that it's mostly in certain groups on the forum where the genitalia-size-comparison-contests occur. For example, things tend to be pretty mellow in the builder groups. Heck, even the DLP vs LCD debates don't seem to generate as much vitriol as I've seen spewed forth about Outlaw and other high bang/buck type companies.

Thankfully most people seem to be pretty reasonable. I even met someone there who lived near me and was generous enough to give me half a roll of duct liner material for my acoustical treatments!

Everyone needs to chill, take a step back, and remember that it's supposed to be all about the movies, music and fun.

Robert's comments really surprised me. Even if the Anthem sounded clearly superior to the 990 he would have been out of line. Given that they sound so similar, his comments are something worse.

I'm hoping he was just having a bad day. A comment like that motivated by blind loyalty to something because he paid more for it is out of place in a forum dedicated to "spreading the word" and sharing our A/V experiences.

Cary

What I find amusing is just about anyone doing an actual comparison between gear and then posting their “opinions” inevitably turns into a debate about double blind testing.

Anthem is pretty much known for their bang for the buck also, The avm20 and avm30 are really pretty reasonably priced, expecially if you can find one used. just throwin that in there.

correct me if I am wrong but arent you talking about several thousand dollars deference?

Anthem seem to be great stuff but for the price of one you can get a 990 and a amp.

It is of at least academic interest that the DAC's used in the Anthem AVM-20 and AVM-30 (AK4382) have the following specs: THD + N, 94 dB; Dynamic Range, 112 dB while the DAC's in the 990 (AD1852) have superior specs: THD + N, 104 dB; Dynamic Range, 114 dB.

Makes it hard to imagine how the Anthem could be audibly superior to the 990.

Dont post that in the AVS forum! You'll have a war on your hands!

Lets be fair.

You have to admit, that although the DACs have better specs, it is only a piece of the picture. There are a lot of other parts, pieces, and engineering surround that DAC.

I have to agree with chime-in. A good case in point is the Denon DVD-2900. In that model they used excellent DAC's but skimped on the actual analog output circuits. (I actually own that unit and had Dan Modwright work his magic, totally reworking the 2 ch outputs and the results were a marked improvement over the stock unit).

(BTW I'm not questioning outlaw quality-I have a 950 and my 990 is on the way)

Not hard to imagine at all. Maybe Anthem has a better implementation of the DACs; maybe Anthem has better analogue stages that follow the DACs; etc. Sound quality is a result of a combination of factors that run the length of the entire signal path, not the specs of one particular part.

Yes, everyone who has said that the specs on paper for the DACs is only part of the picture is correct. You can take a very expensive DAC with great specs and stick it in a poor PCB layout, in a system with noisy power supplies, and stick low quality components in the output filtering and end up with something that, as a system, has terrible measured performance and sounds awful. Circuit topology and board layout and type (i.e. 2 vs 4 layer) play a big part in the finished product.

My feeling is that Eastech (who does Outlaw's engineering, I believe) seems to design to reasonably good standards. I poked and peeked into the various 950's that I had early on in the process when it was introduced and thought they did a reasonable job. It was not over-designed as many boutique pieces are (which is sometimes cool, but not always necessary for performance).

Anthem had a reputation for providing a lot of quality and performance for the price - they clearly put a lot of engineering thought into the design of their products, both on features and on the nuts and bolts integration of the pieces. I would expect them to make sure that the overall design was solid. The fact that the 990 has DAC's with better specs is likely due in part to the fact that the basic chassis design (the P-965) and associated component selection is several years newer than the AVM-20 design (the AVM-30 is basically a tweaked and updated AVM-20, not a completely new product, which is why the two share so many specs). Before anyone thinks we're dismissing the difference in specs entirely, however, I will say that Lawrence's observation is certainly of interest, and it speaks well of the components (at least the DAC's) being used in the 990.

Eastech has done a lot for Outlaw in the past (both the 1050 and 950, and possibly the 1070), but the 990 is coming from Etronics. Etronics' reputation and Outlaw's past efforts to be picky about quality control would suggest that the end results are at least on par with what was provided by Eastech in the past.

I haven't posted here since the start of this thread, but I have to say that I was very interested to read about the methodical and fair manner in which jcmccorm conducted his testing. I look forward to hearing which unit he decides to keep. It sounds like a win-win for him.

Cary concluded his test and here are his results. Pretty good showing for Outlaw. Thanks again Cary for going through all the trouble to conduct a blind test. They are much harder than most would imagine.

Thanks Jed!

I still need/want to run through some DD/DTS stuff to see if one of these guys is "broke" or just clearly better than the other.

From what I've heard so far I can say this:

If you've got a 950 and don't have the funds to upgrade yet, don't sweat it, we're talking about a few % here of improvement.

If you're on the fence regarding the 950 and 990, I'd recommend the 990. I prefer it's sound to the 950 (at least in digital 2ch mode) and it's another great value from Outlaw.

Cary

As I am sure you all know BOSE stands for "Boldly Overpriced Sound Equipment". This has also been the true for every other manufacturer in the high end audio world (please forgive me for classifying BOSE as high end). That was until the Outlaws came to town.

Looks like Sheriff George wants to protect someones profit margin to me. As Big Dan said, "It's all about the money boys!"

We all know that quality electronic components are easy to mass produce these days at a very low cost, and with new advances in CAD, the design of electrical systems is easier than ever.

With all these advances along with the ability to sell direct to the consumer over the Internet (and cut out the profit of all those middle men), it is getting harder and harder to justify selling audio gear for the prices (and markup) that many companies have gotten used to.

For some folks (who have plenty of money and very little time), the value of boutique electronics that usually come with the services of local experts is well worth the extra money, but for the rest of us the entry of folks like Outlaw into the market is a real revolution.

It looks like the originator has finished his testing at AVS Forum Outlaw 990 vs Anthem AVM-20 . It looks like a pretty fair amateur test, with a lot of bending-over-backwards to avoid various kinds of biases. Bottom line, slightly prefers Anthem for 2-channel musicality and can't tell the difference for HT listening.

Thanks Mike. I added more switches in the output path so that I could switch 5 outputs (left, right, center, left surround and right surround)to the amps as well as the digital input from the DVD player (HTPC). This let me flip a switch (well, three actually) and change the pre/pro on the fly while listening to a movie.

I came into the movie listening testing *expecting* to prefer the AVM20 since I liked it for 2ch but I honestly could not tell them apart, and I listened to a handful of movie chapters over and over on each unit over multiple evenings. Each one was just as involving as the other. Neither excelled over the others at any aspect (except for slightly more bass in the 990 that I never figured out). That does speak well for both of the Outlaw units. (The 950's strength was always movies I thought).

Cary