The Outlaw 950 - Confessions of a Beta Tester (1 Viewer)

[Ricky T]

Gene,

I just got an MC1 and compared it to my Onkyo 989 (as a prepro) and found that what Logic 7 and Lexicon's inherent flexibility does for 2.0 and 5.1 sources was the deciding factor (see my current thread). The Onkyo is the equal in terms of detail, resolution, dynamics, 2 channel dac. Without Logic 7, or if I didn't like Logic 7, the Onkyo is as good, and probably wins with better features (5.1 inputs, component video switcing, ac3 demod, upgradeability).

I am looking forward to hearing your comparisons of Logic 7 vs CES.

 

[Brian Schucher]

The 899.00 price tag is "introductory" as i understand. Any idea where the price of the 950 might end up 6 months from now?

 

[Will]

While anything is possible, they don't see any major pending price increase.

We have to admit we're amused by all the speculation about future pricing on the Model 950. When we first announced the "Introductory" price we used that phrasing to protect ourselves in case we found that the cost of the final unit would be such that we might have to raise prices after a few months. While anything is possible, we do not see any major pending price increase, and in any case we will honor the $899 price for everyone who places their name on the reservations list. That's all. As to some of the speculation about our pricing plans where some people say a major increase is coming, we find that hilarious.

 

[JerryW]

Mmmmmm... I'm really itching to get my hands on a 950, then I'll be a true seperates owner! Coincidently, I really have enjoyed the Onkyo 797 I've had for the last couple months, it's been a very fine product and I'd highly recommend it to anyone looking for a great mid-fi receiver.
That said... WOOHOO!!! I want my 950 NOW!
Robert and John, thanks for all the detailed info and such. You gentlemen have truly brought me hope in my hour of HT peril. Ok, that's going a bit far, but dammit, I haven't been this happy since I received my divorce papers! W00T!!!

 

[Chuck Frady]

Am I the only one who thinks Aesthetics plays a big part in the purchasing decision? The 950 may or may not be the Pre/Pro to buy, that being the choice of the individual consumer, but it is in my opinion that Outlaw needs to fire their front panel design team and hire some more artistic endowed personnel.

What's with the green button?

Also, what kind of financial shape is Outlaw in? I mean are they a well funded startup or are they going to dissapear in a couple of years due to lack of market penetration. Lots of competition out there people. I wouldn't want to buy hardware from a company that may not be around when it comes time to service the products.

the skeptic...

 

[Doug_B]

Wow, didn't expect the beta testers to be let loose this quickly! John and Robert, you really had me going .
I am one of the people who did not wait for the 950 and got the Anthem AVM 20 instead, back in December. Although my decision to go the separates route was triggered in large part by the expectation of purchasing a 950, I had already ordered the rest of my equipment during the last quarter of 2001 (hoping for a Nov-Dec 950 delivery), and it all came in by December.
At that point, I had to evaluate speakers (along with amps, CDP) I had never previously heard, so I had to make a decision on doing this eval with an old DPL receiver with no dig in and no bypass mode or buying an inexpensive current receiver while waiting for the 950. I chose the AVM 20 so as not to potentially compromise my evaluation of the other components.
With all the current positive feedback on the 950, yes, I am somewhat disappointed not to have the 950 (and the extra $), but I'm not sorry for the decision I made. I am very happy with the AVM 20 and felt it was the decision I had to make at the time. At least I got a very good price on the AVM 20, FWIW ).
Doug

 

[Rob Curtis]

Chuck,

There are no gaurantees with any firm.

Can you give me an example of a company your sure is going to be around in 5 years???

 

[Evan S]

Doug, I wouldn't be disappointed with the unit you have. It's a great unit. I agree, if I had been impetuious and gotten an AVM-20 instead of the 950 after hearing these reviews, I'd be a bit disappointed. However, the AVM-20 is NOT an inferior unit. While the sound of the 950 may compare to the Anthem, you paid a premium for upgradability, extended feature set and customization abilities. It's a more flexible unit than the Outlaw and will probably suit you very well at the same time us Outlaw owners will be looking to upgrade. I'm going to keep my eye out for one of those Anthem units on the used market in the next year or so, so I can compare the two. If Outlaw had waiting a little bit longer than they did to let Beta testers talk, I would have done the exact same thing you did.

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Robert, John, and Gene:
Thank you!
As far as someone talking about the front exterior, I kind of agree that it would be nice for it to reflect the sound quality that all three of the reviewers have talked about, but I could also say: what do you expect for $900?
One guy had a picture of the 950 with replacing the green on/off button with a bullet, and recessing and lighting all of the buttons. That looked neat. Don't know if he's willing to do that for the general population though!
Robert, John, and Gene: Are there *any* areas any of you found for improvement? Sound quality, ergonomics, remote, anything?
And, if I was thinking about getting one, I'd be tempted to wait 6 months for any "bugs" to be worked out. (I currently have a Sony TA-E9000ES that took the better part of 3 software upgrades, and a remote retrofit, before they got it right.) Would you say it's OK to buy the Outlaw now, or wait a little?
Thanks again.
*This* is one real live benefit of HTF. I personally think the 950 is probably one of the *most* anticipated pieces of HT/stereo equipment in quite a while. I'm personally happy that it's living up to all the hype!

 

[Jim Prillaman]

Kevin
I can't speak for the beta testers (by the way, thanks for the great info, guys). I have followed the "wait for somebody else to work out the bugs" approach to some other products in the past with good results and deviated from that approach with bad results (computer software, for example -- anybody remember AutoCAD R13?). In this case, though, I think it's as safe as you're likely to find to go ahead and get one now. I've been watching the development of the 950 for a long while now (in Outlaw's newsletters, in their own forum, and in this forum), and from all that I can tell they're not letting it out the door until it is as bug-free as something this complex can get. I'll let you know once I've gotten mine (been on the reservation list since the first night) .

 

[Scott-C]

Hi Gene,

Thanks for the review.

With all the current positive feedback on the 950, yes, I am somewhat disappointed not to have the 950 (and the extra $), but I'm not sorry for the decision I made.

Doug, I second what Evan said. You bought yourself one heckuva pre/pro in the AVM-20 and you should be good to go for quite some time. It appears to be upgradeable, has every conceivable feature you could want, is great-looking, has gotten excellent reviews, and probably puts a smile on your face every time you hear it. I know it's hard to do, but don't worry too much about your purchase decision and enjoy the AVM-20!

 

[Sankar]

From what I've been reading, there were 5 beta testers:
RAF, John and Gene have posted here.
The "third" beta tester posted here :
Third beta tester
.. so where is the "fourth" tester ?

 

[Will]

Here's what the third beta tester said over in the Outlaw forum (URL posted above) regarding the 4th beta tester and other items:

I think tester #4 just received a unit Sunday or Monday of this week, so I wouldn't expect anything from him/her just yet.

GENERAL COMMENTS

- no switched outlets

My AudioSource amps have an auto-on/off function, but no 12v triggers. I found that if the volume is too low, the amps shut themselves off. Oh well. I guess that's what they're supposed to do.

I don't want to leave them on all the time, so I'm going to have to get a switched power strip.

- pseudo analog test

My Sony DVP-S7700 DVD player has both analog and digital (coaxial) outputs. I connected both to the 950 for testing. I told the 950 that DVD input was on Coaxial 1, and that CD input was Analog. Then I used the remote to switch back and forth. Neither my wife nor I could hear any difference between these.

I'll have to buy a phono preamp so I can test a real analog signal. I haven't listened to a record in at least five years, so it wasn't a priority to me.

- display readability

I like the two-line display. It is easily readable from 10' across the room. I miss the LED on the volume control like my Yamaha had, but I understand the advantage of this type. The volume control is linear, so it's easy to set any exact volume level you want. With my Yamaha, I could only use part of the dial - from 7:00 up to 11:00 or so.

I think everything in the on-screen display is mirrored on the front panel. That's important if you don't want the 950 to do any video switching for you.

The display can be dimmed by 50%, which looks better to me, even in daylight.

- documentation

I'm a tech writer, so unlike most people I like to RTFM before installing something. But obviously I was able to set up the system without a manual.

Because Peter had told me I wouldn't get a manual, I printed the one from the 1050, thinking it would help if I got into trouble. I forgot that I had it, and never used it.

I found a few things that I thought were bugs, but that turned out to be features. I suggested that these would be good to mention in the manual.

- logo/button

Didn't Ben Franklin say, "in the dark, all audio components are grey?" The logo isn't as big as I thought it would be. I really got so involved with the awesome performance of the unit that the logo (and the whole equipment rack) became invisible.

And here's something - my beta unit actually has a BLACK button! (I wonder if I could swap it when I get my production unit??)

- noise level

Initially, I had a problem with hum, but it went away when I put cheater plugs on the AudionSource amps to bypass the ground connection. Two plugs at 99 cents from the local hardware store and the hum totally disappeared.

I'll do a test tonight for crosstalk and will report back tomorrow...

- headphone

As we saw in the alpha pictures, there's no headphone jack. The wife and I both have Sennheiser HD-580's that we use at work, so we are fond of good headphone sound. But why bother in the home theater room when we have the full speaker setup?

I think that people going with separates are expected to buy a separate headphone amp. Even the lo-fi cordless headphones we gave my father a few years ago need line-level outputs.

There's no Dolby Headphone processing.

- DSPs and tone controls

Last year, I voted to keep the the DSPs. I used to use the Jazz Club setting on my Yamaha once in a while. Oh well.

You can adjust the Bass and Treble by... rats, forgot to write it down... something like +/- 6 dB.

There's no balance control, but you can raise or lower each speaker's relative volume.

- naming inputs and associating surround modes with them

In college, I had a JVC receiver that called the CD input "DAD," for Digital Audio Disk. On my Yamaha, I had to connect the DVD player to "Tape2/VCR 2." On my Mitsubishi TV, the cable signal displays on the screen as "Antenna A." And, before I got an external amp (connected to "Tape 1 Out"), when we listened to anything in Zone 2 we had to remember to turn off the surround modes, because there was no center channel. This all lead to low SAF when I had to explain multiple mappings and steps to watch a movie.

With the 950, I want to select "DVD" and have it automatically use the proper surround mode. Yes! It works. Each input can have a different processing applied to it, and this is remembered when you turn the unit off.

What can't it do? I can't rename the inputs. So I can't change Video 1 to Game, Video 2 to Baby Monitor, etc.

- video quality

Unfortunately, my beta unit had a problem with the S-Video output. I considered this my first big find during beta, only to find out that manufacturing had already discovered the hardware problem and corrected it, but hadn't told Outlaw yet. Scott couldn't reproduce the problem, so obviously it has been fixed in later units.

- bass management

The 950 offers a hard-set analog bass management option for folks using the 5.1 analog inputs. I don't have DVD-A or SACD, so I couldn't test this yet. 80 Hz seems like a good compromise point, although it wouldn't be ideal for me.

I *really* like the triple crossover! My surround speakers are rated down to 48Hz, which was overkill for Dolby Pro Logic with its limited bandwidth of 100Hz- 7kHz. Now I have set a crossover for them at 60 Hz. I also used this feature to set my center to 80 Hz, and my mains to 40 Hz.The sub obviously gets everything below those crossover points.

An interesting feature (that I initially thought was a bug) is that if you set your speaker to "large", you can still set a crossover. In this case, the bass below the crossover point is still sent to the sub, but it isn't removed from the primary speaker.

You can also turn the sub off if you have all large, full-range speakers. If you do that, I don't know if it re-integrates the .1 signal back into the speakers...? Someone else will have to test that, or we have to wait for the manual. My big Snells go pretty low (rated for 34dB), but not down into sub territory.

The triple crossover works amazingly well. Each channel now seems more complete than ever before. Running through the test sweeps on the Avia disk really shows how seamless the crossover is. Wow! This feature sold me on the product.

- future proof?

Compared to the price of upgrades on some processors, you could buy this, wait a couple of years, then buy the high-end Outlaw processor and give this one away. I think you'd still end up ahead.

With the 950 in place, the processor is no longer the weakest link in my system. Looking at my own upgrade path, I want the Bryston 6B-ST I've been pining for, then a satellite dish to replace our lousy cable service, and then a new HDTV. After that, I'll need a DVD player with progressive-scan output and either SACD or DVD-A. The 950 can handle any of those upgrades. I was glad to read in the forum that the 950's component switching could handle HDTV signals.

Downloadable upgrades would have been nice, but they did say they could put out fixes on a new eprom. That's better than what I have now!

The 950 is future-proof if the future is defined as only 5-10 years away.

- SAF

My wife and I were friends for almost a year before we started dating. One of the first things we did as friends was to go shopping for some real speakers to replace her college setup. She ended up with Definitive Technology BP8's, which she later upgraded to BP10's, and then to the BP30's we have now. She loves that bipolar sound where I prefer my more precise Snells. The point is, she's got good ears, but they are different than

mine.

Her take on this new piece is that of course the new surround modes are great. But listening to straight stereo, she hasn't really listened enough to notice much difference. Because of the nest of wires, it's difficult to compare the old and new setups since I couldn't immediately switch back and forth. The old setup sounded great, and the new one still sounds great. Continued listening will probably improve her impressions as we notice new things in our favorite songs.

One very important thing about getting the 950 is that we can finally move the Yamaha upstairs to replace a Sony receiver that died a year ago. The upstairs "zone 3," where the BP30's are, has been music-less for a year. Being able to do this will improve our overall enjoyment level more than getting DD and DTS down in the home theater.

 

[Jim Prillaman]

Sankar, you missed Gene Lockaby (bottom of this page), the tester who received his unit most recently. The last tester (#4 of 5) remains anonymous, as far as I have heard.

 

[Chris Zell]

Great to hear positive news about the 950's sound.

I have not heard much, however, about what I am really interested in. How does the unit sound with 2 channel music sources? I know this is a home theater forum, and I am likely in a small minority here as mainly a music listener, but frankly I don't give much of a hoot about video stuff. For example, I bought an ICBM about 3 months ago, and a center channel about the same time. I have yet to watch a movie, and played about 45 minutes of a music concert DVD - that's it besides 2 channel music sources. So I'm dieing to know how the 950 does in music surround modes! DPLII , Cirrus whatever it is called, etc. - that's what I want to hear about!

I signed up on the 950 list about 2 to 3 days after they opened the gates (slipped my mind), so I guess I'll be in the 2nd or 3rd wave of units judging from all the folks around here that signed up in the first hour or so. Not a problem, since a little wait for my wallet to thicken is better for me anyhow.

Cheers,

Chris

 

[Evan S]

Chris, I think John Morris mentioned in one of his posts that two channel music reproduction was so good on this unit that you wouldn't need a dedicated two channel pre to take care of this duty if you didn't want to. He also said the DPL II was awesome if I recall correctly. This is very important to me as well as my 950 will be used for 85% CD/SACD listening.

 

[Kevin P]

Now it's time for me to pipe in with my questions. I currently have an Outlaw 1050, and I don't know if any of the 950 beta testers have the 1050, but I was wondering how the 950 compares to the 1050 in terms of sound quality, quality of surround decoding, etc. I would expect (hope?) it sounds better, being a dedicated pre-pro instead of a receiver.

Another question I have relates to those who may be upgrading from a 1050 or other 6.1 receiver/pre-pro to the 950. I have a "center surround" speaker in my setup, but only one, not two as a 7.1 system would need. How would the "7.1" modes work with a single rear speaker?

And last but not least, I would like to hear folks' impressions of the 950's tuner (preferably the updated version), especially how it compares to the tuner in the 1050. I have a wife who (unfortunately?) likes to listen to FM all day. So tuner performance is important to me.

Has anyone seen/heard the 770 amp yet?

KJP

 

[Chris Zell]

Evan,

Thanks - you're right, John did mention a bit about DPLII etc. The stuff about a separate 2 channel preamp is not relevent for me - I am interested in 2 channel sources processed into surround, not a separate 2 channel system. I only have my surround system, and I want to use all of it! As far as John's DPLII comments, I guess I am greedy and want a LOT more detail Details about the DPLII music mode parameter adjustments, and detail about the other processing options and comparisons. I want to hear details of Lexicon Logic 7 vs 950 DPLII and Cirrus. And so on - I can't get enough info!

Glad to hear about another mainly music person.

Cheers,

Chris

 

[Kevin C Brown]

I'll add to Kevin (!) P.'s question:

During set up, does it ask you how many speakers will be used? (5 or 6 or 7 plus the .1)

Or does it somehow "figure it out" ?

Another (silly) question: how much does it weigh?

Thanks!!!!

 

[rodneyH]

maybe this is a dumb ?, but does the 950 have 2 sets of 5.1 inputs to allow multi-channel SACD and DVD-a to be hooked up at the same time???