I received the pre-production reference sample 755 today. Rather than sending you all over the web, I'm reproducing a couple of preliminary comments I made over on the HTF as follows:

The heavy (83 pounds!) box arrived today and I hope to have it hooked up by sometime tomorrow (I have previous commitments tonight). I thought that my Denon 5700 was a beast at a little under 50 pounds, but this 755 is a back breaker! The 770 is supposedly even heavier. The mind boggles. The 755 looks extremely impressive in terms of build quality. I popped the hood and it looks exactly like the pictures in the 755 gallery on the Outlaw site. Although I don't have a 770 in front of me, from the comparison of the pictures of the two units I wouldn't be surprised if the 755 is the same as the 770, with two fewer channels.

Also, the binding posts on the back and the RCA input jacks are very heavy duty. All in all one hefty piece of equipment. If the performance is as serious as the build quality then this will be one kick-a unit.

I'm planning to run a series of listening tests comparing the 755 to my Marantz MA700 monoblocks, as well as comparing the sound of the 755 to the 175W/channel amps of the Denon 5700 (which will be leaving shortly). I really don't expect the 5700 receiver's amps to compete well, but I'm curious. There's also the question of what I'm going to do with the 8 channels of amplification I now have available. One option would be to keep the MA700s in front for the L/C/R channels as they are now, and use the 755 for the 4 surround channels. Another option would be to use all five channels of the 755 for the L/C/R front and the L/R Side Surrounds, with two of the MA700's feeding the L/R rear surrounds. The third MA700 would become a spare (waiting for 8.1? )

The nice thing is that with all of the amps able to receive banana plugs trying out all these possibilities will not be too complicated. I just have to make sure that I don't have so much power plugged into my outlets that the electric meter screws itself into the ground!



Stay tuned....


------------------
RAF

My HT (latest update 02/14/02) Now includes Outlaw 950