Here are my first impressions of the Outlaw 950 that I received on Monday. I hope to post additional comments once I have gone through more of the surround modes and some additional dvds and music. My system consists of the following:

Fronts-Paradigm Ref. 20's-v2
Center-Paradigm Studio CC
Surrounds-Paradigm Ref. 20's-v1
Back Surrounds-Paradigm Mini Monitors
Amplification-Outlaw 750 and ATI 1502
Sub-Paradigm PS-1000
DVD-Pioneer DV-414
VCR-Proscan
TV-Proscan 27"
Cables-DH Labs Silver Sonic T-14 and BL-1 series II -Outlaw IC's for back surrounds
Old receiver-Yamaha RX-V795

First of all, I have been waiting a long time like so many others for this component to come out and I was very excited to finally receive it. Well the sound is just simply incredible. After going through the setup and deciding on the speaker size(small with fronts crossed at 40HZ and center and surround crossed at 60Hz), I put in a DTS demo disc and played Seal's "Prayer For the Dying." I was floored to say the least. The 950 had no problem reproducing the dynamics and detail in this song. I even had to turn my sub level down from where I had it with my old receiver.

The tuner works fine and 2 channel music from cds sounds very robust and smooth. I had to use the small setting on my speakers to get the sub to activate with tuner and 2 channel music. I also like the Dolby Pro Logic2-cinema when watching TV. The Phantom Menace was on TV Thursday night and I was really impressed at how great it sounded with DPL2. My first dvd to watch was Dark City and the level of detail I heard was amazing. Other 950 owners have mentioned about how much more detail they are hearing in movies and I can attest to that with Dark City. This is one of my favorite dvds and ambient sounds came through like never before. Well those are some of the positives. Here is one of the negatives.

The primary reason I wanted the 950 was for the new 6.1 format for dvds. In my first tests of this surround mode I have been somewhat disappointed. It may not be the fault to the 950, but I just simply don't hear much information coming from the center surround speakers. It may also be that I was just expecting too much in the way of more surround info in this format. I have tried Toy Story 2, Atlantis and Phantom Menace. Of these three, PM sounds the best to me in 6.1 mode. When I toggle back and forth between DD and DD EX, the overall sound level seems to definitely decrease some in EX mode and it does not sound as dynamic compared to just Dolby Digital mode. I actually prefered DD at times. I realize that the sound is more spread out in EX mode and this may have something to do with it.

I have not tried the Cirrus Extra mode so that could make a difference in the performance also. DTS ES encoded dvds are a different story however. I have tried The Haunting and Gladiator and both of them sound so incredible in DTS ES. The center surround info did not disappoint with certain scenes in Gladiator. This was one awesome dvd. The difference did not surprise me with these dvds however since the sound is a discrete one for the center surround channel.

In summary, the 950 is certainly a high quality component with exceptional performance and features for the money. It has so far been well worth the wait for me and I hope to post some additional input later. Thanks for reading. Hope everyone enjoys their 950.

------------------


[This message has been edited by mdanderson (edited May 11, 2002).]