I've noticed several posts from you on different forums today with this same report. I am sorry to hear that you were disappointed, but I think you raise a couple of potentially valuable points that we should all stop and recognize. For one thing, the adage "you get what you pay for" holds true to a great degree in all aspects of life. Outlaw offers great equipment for the price - based on other products they've produced, I would expect the 990 to at least represent a very pleasing combination of sound and features for the price. Anyone expecting any $1100 SSP to walk, talk, and somehow "put to shame" products costing several times more are running the risk of serious disappointment. Also, personal tastes differ, sometimes greatly. Some people are very fond of the "Canadian" sound of speakers like Paradigm or Axiom (to name a couple), while others prefer British speakers like B&W or KEF, and still others prefer Klipsch or Polk or Boston Acoustics. The cool part is that nobody's necessarily wrong. If, for example, the Atlantic Tech speakers weren't to someone's liking, the Paradigm setup could have been a preferred demo system last weekend.

We're still dealing with too small a sampling of reports to know just what the 990's capable of, in my opinion. I've seen reports from a number of sources who felt that the 990/770/LFM-1/Atlantic Tech system was the home theater highlight of last weekend's show, which certainly very bodes well for the 990 (especially considering some of the other hardware on display). There are also countless reviews and user comments about the P-965 (the foundation for the 990) that are highly complimentary. It may very well be that the 990 isn't the sonic equal of an Anthem D1 (which is at least reassuring for the much more expensive D1), but the real test will be to put the 990 into people's home systems and see how they feel about it. Even then, the 990 will experience the same thing that every other product on the market experiences. For some people, it will not be enough to take the place of a more expensive unit because the imcremental differences (and we tend to get down to small differences as the price rises) are worth the extra money to them. For others, that same incremental difference will not be enough to warrant spending twice (or more) the money. Three years ago, I felt that many vocal opponents of the 950 were just plain mad that they couldn't get "something for nothing" - that $900 at Outlaw wouldn't buy a $2500 or $4000 product available elsewhere. The fact that it would buy something that offered a great deal of enjoyment for the price got lost along the way, which I think was a shame.