Outlaw 950? (1 Viewer)

[BobAlbano]

After a long wait (5 months) on the waiting list, I know not as long as some, I went ahead a ordered the 950. I have been going back and forth on whether or not to by it. I have be using my trusty Denon ARV3300 for a pre-pro for the last 6 months and have been happy with it. I have heard some great things about the 950 and then some things that make me a little worried. Did I do the right thing in going for the 950? I guess I just need a vote of confidence that it was worth the $ and the trouble I'm going to be in from the boss.:rolleyes

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Bob- It's a no-brainer. You get 30 days to try it out. If you don't like it, you send it back.
That's what I'm going to do, because the Outlaw at $899 seems like such a good deal, but I'm also waffling between that and the new B&K Ref 50 which I've seen for $2300 already. (Not even released yet!) I just have this thing about THX Ultra2 or Logic 7 (stereo rears)...
But like I said, $899 might be too good a deal to pass up... (And if you follow stuff on Outlaw's site, their customer service is some of the best out there.)

 

[Juan Escobar]

I have the 950 for several months and the replacement for few days, My honest opinion is ,you get a 899.00 pre not less not more,Do not buy if you think that you going to get a pre who cost 2,000.

 

[David S]

"Do not buy if you think that you going to get a pre who cost 2,000".

Juan - could you be more specific - ie., what $2,000 pre-pro is available that offers more than the 950? The 950 is a great sounding pre-pro, that can be had for a value price.

 

[Bill Bradstreet]

I'm getting very close to pulling the trigger myself. I have a few more days to decide before I lose my spot. I was deciding between the Rotel and the Outlaw, but since Rotel does not have a tuner built-in, I think I've knocked it off my list. I want to reduce the number of components to be futzed with on the rack.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Bill, take a look at the Rotel 1055 receiver.

 

[dave alan]

buy the 950.

changing formats, new formats, format wars. it would stress me to no end to buy a 3k prepro and have to replace it a year or two later. i know a lot of companies offer upgradeable options, but common sense rules here.

the upgrades aren't free, they aren't without inconvenience and they aren't forever.

at $899+ shipping, you have an excellent product. some of the features are cumbersome, but the flexibility is still there. and this pre SOUNDS GOOD.

in a year or two, buy the 950's big brother, gift the 950 to someone you love and STILL be under $2500 (my guess).

i tried adcom (ugh), onk 898, marantz sr 9200 and auditioned the 1066. i own the 950 and consider it the best single purchase i've made since the whole home theater thing began a decade ago. it does everything it's supposed to do (including no double bass in pure two channel stereo bypass mode). plus, as noted by others, you have a 30 day, in home trial period, PLUS a 5 year parts/labor warranty.
....like the man said...a no-brainer.

 

[StephenRabinowitz]

I replaced by B&K Ref 20 with the Outlaw 950 & could not be happier. I can hear things on soundtracks I missed on the B&K. The B&K upgrade is more hype then real. To upgrade the 20 to 30 you get the guts but no THX & some other things missing for $900, $1 more then the Outlaw just to upgrade. The Outlaw does not have many bells & whistles but does have the sound of a much more expensive pre pro.

 

[Soleil]

Well, my feeling about the 950 is that it looks as if you can not upgrade the firmware. Now, granted the 950 may be shipping in excellent quality but after some time, someone may find a problem with it that outlaw overlooked in its beta testing. To fix it, you will have to ship it back to outlaw if it meant that much to you.

Just my 2 cents.
Soleil

 

[Kevin C Brown]

The Outlaw isn't *easily* upgradeable, but then again, most receivers that go for less than $2k aren't either. Somehow all those manufacturers seem to get it right.
The nice thing about the 950 is, it has a 5 year warranty. So if something strange does show up later on, it's more than likely covered.

 

[StephenRabinowitz]

My B&K Ref 20 needed a firmware update, had the connector on the back of it but no one but B&K had the equipment to do it so it had to go back to them anyway.

 

[Brian O]

I pulled the trigger Wednesday after stewing on it for 2 days. They shipped UPS Ground to me on Thursday and received it Friday, being in So. Calif. Very nice shipping job being double boxed.

Initial reaction upon seeing the unit is...this is a solid piece of equipment. Very nice looking and the cabinet and face are blacker than I had thought they would be, which is a good thing for me. It had looked more grey to me in pictures. The screen has very nice green lighting and well layed out.

I have been using a Denon 3300 for a few years as a Pre/Pro hooked to two HK PA5800 5 channel Amps. My Front speakers consist of Monitor Audio Silver 5, Center 10, Velodyne CT10 Sub. Rears are Infinity RS-3 and Quadroples.

While I had liked the Denon 3300, I had found it to sound flatter than I would have preferred. Basically, lacking the detail I prefer without cranking up the Treble and Bass controls. I did like the user-friendliness of the unit.

I previously had a Yamaha 795 and HK 500 in my home but did not have the HK Amps then. I really loved the HK for 2 channel music and have been looking/hoping for that sound since, but the HT 5.1 sound was lacking the liveliness of the Yamaha. But, the Yamaha was very weak on 2 channel music. Go figure.

I have found the Outlaw 950 to be a great upgrade for me so far. I calibrated my system with the Radio Shack unit. I really like the sound. Very nice, solid, warm low end, clean midrange and detailed highs that I was wishing for. I am hearing new detail in source material that I have listened to many times before.

I really like the remote too. It works great with all my equipment. Though, I did have to program it to use my Toshiba DVD player Dpad controls for Menus, but works great now. Programming is very simple.

Using the S-Video switching for my DVD player to my JVC 35" TV, the picture looks very clean. No degradation at all and actually looks better-cleaner than it did before with the Denon 3300. No Component hookup capability needed yet, but hopefully soon with a new RPTV.

Setup is very simple. My only real beef is not being able to distinguish between both sets of Surround speakers I have other than the Trim controls. That is something I could do with the Denon. When using Direct Radiating and Quadrapole, I really want the flexibility to choose between those depending on music or movies. If I am missing something here, please educate me, as I would really like to be able to turn off the Quadrapoles for music.

Two channel music was very nice. The bypass option works well and sounds much, much better than the Denon did. Just by hitting the bypass button on the remote, you can alternate between analog bypass and digital stereo. I found the auto format detector on CDs to be a hair slower than the Denons, but I could disable that whenever I wanted to and then no problems at all.

DTS decoding was superb on The Eagles: WHFO. I could actually hear the individual voices in the harmonies and really hear the rubbing of the bows on the strings. I hadnt been able to hear that much detail before. Surrounds seem to really come alive too. Low end was very powerful, full, and warm yet did not overwhelm the soundstage. Just enhance it. Very nice.

Soundwise, I got what I wanted. I got all the latest formats I wanted other than Logic 7. Bass management is very nice. Solid unit with well layed out back panel and plenty of hookups to last me a long time.

 

[Russell _T]

Thanks for the review Brian,
It's encouraging to hear good things being said by the new owners. Any indication of the famous hiss or double bass problems?

 

[Brian O]

No hiss problems here and no double bass issues that I am aware of either. I have all my speakers set on Small with the Crossovers at 60 for the Mains and 80 for all the rest.

 

[Joe_Mcc]

I was on the list to purchase the 950 since January 2002. I recently canceled due to the inordinate number of delays by Outlaw. I ended up going with the Rotel 1066. I'm told that the 1066 and 950 are realatively equal sonically. For me, I'll be quite honest, it came down to availability and looks. The bottom line is that in my opinion the 1066 looks 100% better than the 950. The question becomes whether it looks $350.00 better. Since my unit sits out in the open, I concluded for my taste that it was worth it. BTW the unit sounds awesome both in two channel and for home theater. P.S. you must purchase a SVS sub with it.

 

[BobAlbano]

Well, I went a head and pulled the trigger on the 950! I'm glad to hear that someone actually likes the remote as I didn't really like the bulky one that came with the Denon. I will post my thoughts on the 950 in a couple of weeks. Thanks for the reply's and have a great day! PS. I already own a dual 20-39cs+ package to handle the low end, best HT upgrade yet.

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Bob- Merc posted the link for the remote a while back on Outlaw's site...
http://www.universalremote.com/htm/p...00manuals.html

 

[TomH]

There is a thread on the Outlaw forum discussing lower gain on the "fixed" 950's. Does anyone have the output specs for the original units and for the "fixed" units? It appears that the originals were rated at 1.5v while the new ones are at 1.0v. If this is the case it could be a major problem for people with less sensitive amps.

Tom

 

[Ted Kim]

There is a thread on the Outlaw forum discussing lower gain on the "fixed" 950's. Does anyone have the output specs for the original units and for the "fixed" units? It appears that the originals were rated at 1.5v while the new ones are at 1.0v. If this is the case it could be a major problem for people with less sensitive amps.

I am not sure where you are getting the output voltage numbers from . But the lower gain only results in setting the volume knob at a higher level for the same db level. If you are worried about driving your amp to full output levels, there should be no problem. According to the manual, the maximum voltage output is 6.3 Volts RMS. I don't know if these reflect the latest specs on the "fixed units" but regardless, most amps do not require anywhere near 6.3 volts to drive them to clipping. Most require about 1-2 volts to drive them to full rated output. So you should not have a problem at all with less sensitive amps.
BTW, I have one of the "fixed units" and it does seem much improved over the original with regard to the ANALOG hiss issue. Also, when using the 12 volt trigger to trigger my amp on or off, the popping sound coming from the speakers is much lower in volume than the original. It's at a low enough volume that I wouldn't worry about it, whereas previously the pop was so loud I didn't use the trigger at all. So the payback for the lower gain is a worthy tradeoff in my book.