Thanks so much for all your replies. I also left a similar thread on av123.com (current home of Emotiva threads) so any brand 'biases' will cancel out. Unfortunately the only response on my thread there is from someone who owns a 990 and is very happy with it... I notice the prolific and helpful Gonk at av123.com too - Hi Gonk.


Actually I found out that the Emotiva MMC also has a Moving Magnet phono input like the 990. However I have a very nice Audio Technica Moving Coil cartridge and added a high quality MC board to my Naim preamp - so I will be sticking with my $7k worth of Naim stereo electronics on the occasions when I spin vinyl (the wonderful things one can spend money on before one gets married!). I have a set of speaker cables coming out of the Naim power amp and just manually swap them at the speakers when I want the turntable working (painful I know - but the Linn/Naim combo sounds just so good to these British ears).

Thahm - thanks for the info on the Da-Lite screen. That was my other option with Severtson (Stewart Firehawk was out of my price range). Severtson is pretty good - they make the screens for IMAX and some Hollywood film rooms etc. Here are some comments (I dealt with Kirk Severtson in the folowing thread and they test with my 900U projector): http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=786473&highlight=severtson


As far as Outlaw vs Emotiva goes: in summary it seems I would be happy with both but it looks like the 990 will have better quality two channel output, plus other features which the MMC may not have such as editable input names, addressible video inputs, addressible digital audio inputs etc. I found out the MMC does have an RS232 port for field firmware upgrades like the 990.

I have decided against the Arcam. Between the Outlaw or Emotiva I am sure I will be happy and keep whatever one I order and not return it in the 30 day trial period. The question still lingers - which one might make me slightly happier... The research continues.