I did it, I did it, Finally

Well, I finally bought the 990 after much research and questions answered here on this Outlaw forum and some influential input. My story... I was kidnapped, and held at gunpoint until I hit the "enter" key to order, and by whom....GONK. I AM JUST KIDDING, please. I am fortunate to have met the "infamous GONK", as I too live in Memphis, and I can tell you that the only thing that surpasses his knowledge and willingness to help is, His Character. This forum and Outlaw should consider themselves very fortunate indeed to have him.
The 990, right out of the box, I ran into some difficulty with setup and all, I will skip that since I am a newcomer to HT from 2 channel, and have experienced a huge learning curve. DVD concerts and movies blow away my older NAD pre/pro. Fuller-MORE Detailed-a more emcompassing sound, simply enjoyable. I am still tweaking with the cd side of things, as that is my main interest. But with GONK's help I have gotten it pretty close and intend to do serious testing this weekend. All and all, a great piece of equipment so far. I had family in this past 4th, and the sound was a big hit.
If the music meets the standards of my NAD pre/pro, still using a NAD amp, I will be keeping and officially become an Outlaw.
More later and thanks for reading.

You might be surprised at sound improvement with their amps, esp the 200 w/ch amps. Lots of headroom and it is absolutely dead clean !!

Thanks for the kind words! We had a very pleasant morning last Saturday - my wife and daughter splashed around in the pool a bit while UMtiger and I tinkered with remotes and tossed various discs in the CD player. UMtiger already had all the cables hooked up and squared away before we arrived, so aside from sneaking a serial cable in for a quick firmware update there was no heavy lifting involved. The PSB towers and NAD stereo amp seemed quite happy with the 990 as their new front-man. A good time was had by all, and the system was behaving itself in time for the holiday guests to enjoy it.

UMTiger,
Welcome to the saloon. It good to hear about your expearence.
don't forget to throw in an update after an extended listening test.

tmdlp,
Will do on the update as this weekend is the "big" test for music. Again, with Gonk's help I have several test setups to put it through.

I have a question about the 990. Maybe there is something that I was missing in the overall setup between the 990/7700. Everything was working fine except when using the remote. I did not realize that pressing the power button on the remote does not turn it on. I have to press a source button for it to respond. The power button only works when turning it off. Also the the trigger cable that Outlaw has sent me to turn on the 7700 when I power up the 990 is not working. What am I doing wrong or is the remote bad or something else more serious?
It sounds great, the power is clean and loud the way I like it. But I am missing something with the directions?

Rubbersoul, you're right about the remote turn-on by pressing an input button. That way it just takes one press to both turn on the 990 and select an input. Of course the problem for new owners is that it's different from previous experience.
Re the 12v turn-on signal, if your amp is an Outlaw it must be sensitive enough for the 990's 50ma signal to turn it on (some terminal strips, e.g. Monster Cable, need 100ma as I learned the hard way). Either your cable is defective or your 990 isn't putting out a trigger voltage. A cheap multimeter could immediately tell you which is true. I'm sorry to say that for me it was the latter, and my first 990 had to be replaced. Hope you're luckier.

The remote sounds like it's working fine, just remember that the 990 is tnr on the remote in case an other device button gets pressed. I have the same combo and the remote trigger works flawlessly. You might try checking the connections. As with all things there is a learning curve.

Happy listening
Adrian

You might check to make sure you're pluggeed into trigger 1 and not trigger 2. Trigger 1 is active whenever the 990 is on, but trigger 2 is off by default - each input can be configured independently to operate the trigger when that input is active (for things like projector screens).

The cable that was sent to me was new. I spoke to Steve about the problem before he sent me a new one. I cannot believe that TWO cables (the one that was in the unit that I purchased)and the new one sent to me by Scott are defective. I think that the problem might be a more serious one.
I am plugged into trigger 1.
I will be crying my eyes out if I have to send the 990 back. I have waited to long to enjoy this piece of equipment.
Everything is perfect otherwise.

The cable that was sent to me was new. I spoke to Steve about the problem before he sent me a new one. I cannot believe that TWO cables (the one that was in the unit that I purchased)and the new one sent to me by Scott are defective. I think that the problem might be a more serious one.
I am plugged into trigger 1.
I will be crying my eyes out if I have to send the 990 back. I have waited to long to enjoy this piece of equipment.
Everything is perfect otherwise.

rubbersoul,
on the trigger cable - look to make sure the plug is properly exposed.
Meaning: Part of the sheilding was not trimmed away. This would not alow the plug to fulling engage.
Trim the excessive sheilding away and it worked as advertised.

Well, actually I have one on order, but was feeling slighty depressed after reading the review on Audaud, where the reviewer was writing favorably on the 990, but remarked it's not exactly the last word sound wise.
Think he might be comparing to the likes of Arcam AV8 / AV9 ($5000 +), which is unfair (as he readily admitted).
On expensive preamps you often read about the wonderful dynamics, warmth and overall sound quality, but surely the aim shouldn't be to add something to the sound but to try and approach a straight wire?
Anybody having compared the 990 to another processor?
Barend

I don't think there's any need for depression, barend. The 990's been compared to a number of processors over the last year or so. Many 990 owners had previously used Outlaw Model 950's (including myself), and found the upgrade very impressive. It's also been compared to units like Anthem's AVM20 and performed quite respectably (if I remember the thread at AVS correctly, the Anthem had a bit of an edge, but not an appreciable one). I've found the 990 to be a very pleasingly transparent unit.

Thanks Gonk,
For the cheer up!

- Always glad to help...