Just replaced a quickly dying Sony DA50ES receiver from 1996 and at first I thought the Outlaw was thin sounding and inferior in sound processing. Boy was I wrong!! What I did wrong was plug this thing into a hospital grade power conditioner that seemed to cause the problems. This beast needs the full power from the wall socket or you must have a premium power center that does not inhibit the power in any way or it will destroy the sound stage and the video picture qualities. Everything seems to be working great now. The better the sound recording the better the outlaw sounds. I wonder what bit rate the Outlaw can receive cause even the HD DVD discs I have sound fantastic through the digital inputs. The stereo processing is good but not as good as a high quality Dolby Digital or DTS recording sounds. If your looking for a digital processor first (80% usage)and flexible options and hookups this is a steal at the $300 I got it on ebay. Hell its even a steal at $399 on ebay. Right now I have this thing hooked up to just a two channel set-up using the Dolby Digital VS setting and its alot of fun again. I have another amplifier that I'm going to hook up some rear channels eventually but right now I'm just enjoying the product.