Outlaw M200 pro/cons or other suggestions (1 Viewer)

[Michael Marklund]

GOT 'EM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just went local b&m and picked up the 2 amps at lunch. Opened the boxes there to check them out. Major bummer is that I can't hook them up til end of the month when new rack comes in and wife is out of town and I can tear down the whole system. Oh well.

The amps:
All black face and case. Twenty pounds a piece. Torroid is 6-7" in diameter or more and off to one side. Puts the bulk of the weight on the right (if viewed from the front.) NHT logo on left with nht spelled out next to letters. Right side is 3 leds for status. Strangest part about the amps that I didn't know is that the faceplate is bowed outwards slightly. Kind nice touch. Under the bowed out part are 4 small leds that provide lighting to the NHT X1 crossover if placed under the amp. X1 has a bowed in faceplate w/ knobs in the middle. Leds can be dimmed or turned off w/ switch on back. Amps laid flat are dead flat...no rocking.
So that's about as much as I can tell you for now, until I get them up and running. Feel free to ask any questions.

Thanks,
Michael

p.s.-pretty happy day for me. In addition to the amps, I decided to trade in the Acura today and buy a RangeRover.

 

[Ron Boster]

Buying the M blocks are a more expensive choice than Outlaw's 5 channel amps, but think about a channel going down..like mine did last night. Monoblock started smoking, unplugged it and replaced with another mono and was back in business. Sent the bad amp in for service today. Yes, I'm crazy enough to have a spare amp for this reason.

Ron

 

[Tommy_N]

Originally posted by Ron:

think about a channel going down..like mine did last night. Monoblock started smoking

How often does this happen? I figured it would be extremely rare for a well made amp to fail. I'm planning on getting one used. :frowning:

I assumed with no moving parts they would almost never fail. and/or if they failed it would be within the initial ownership period, like a factory defect, or the result of an outside influence, lighting strike, spilling water on it etc.


Tom

 

[Ron Boster]

The amp was less than 5 minutes old. Took it out of the box and hooked it up. Within five minutes I heard a pop and saw smoke comming out of the vents with a nice hiss. I unplugged everything-removed the amp. Took a spare monoblock out and was back in business in 15 minutes. Since it was brand spanking new-no problem. I would assume your assumption is correct. If an amp is bad you'll know right away. Though thoughts of more amps popping and smoking scared me enough to leave everything unplugged overnight....until the next day when I could put the other's through their paces.

Ron

 

[IraSWeiss]

Does anyone have any experience hooking up the M200 to power the front three channels from a Denon 3803? I'm concerned about matching levels.

 

[Michael Marklund]

Ira,

I will by hooking my monoblocks up to my Denon 3802. It's a fairly simple process. Just have to calibrate output levels again as you do on initial set-up. Go into set up on the Denon, go to speaker level settings and using an spl meter, calibrate to 75db (or 85 w/ Avia). That's all you need to do.

Regards,
Michael

 

[MarcVH]

Ira,

I'm using 3 of them for my front soundstage on a Denon 3802 now. As Michael said, you just recalibrate. I found that the change was less than a decibel for me. Unless you have some weird situation where you currently have to set the channel adjustments to their limits (plus or minus 12 dB) to calibrate, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[Michael Merrell]

How often does this happen?

One of the channels on my Parasound HCA-855A failed (ground fault) after I moved it from a room into an adjacent closet. There wasn't any mishandling involved. Parasound took care of it, and I love the amp, but these things do happen.

I was able to run my system off of my DA5ES's internal amps while the amp was in for repair, but had I been using a non-receiver pre/pro, I would have been without all channels for a week. Monoblocks, even without a hot spare, would allow you to only lose a single channel while you waited for replacement.

Even with my experience, I imagine that failure rates are fairly low, so this shouldn't be a major decision making factor.

--Mike

 

[Michael Marklund]

Marc,

Which monoblocks are you using w/ the 3802? Outlaw? How do you like the results? Did you do all three at once or two then one. (like I will be doing.)

This weekend is teardown time. New rack and adding the monoblocks. I think I'm going to replace my cassette deck this week also. The old one is an eyesore in the system. Plus it's a cheap POS. Means adding the third monoblock a month later than planned, but everything is going to look so good with the new rack, I just can't stand my old tape deck.

Thanks,
Michael

 

[MarcVH]

Michael, yes, they're the Outlaw M200s. I added all 3 at once. I suspect that adding just 2 would have been almost as much of an improvement. I was somewhat surprised to see that, even when using 2-channel and not making the 3802 do any amplification, it still feels hotter than the M200s do.

Hmmm. My cassette deck doesn't look very good, but it's tucked away on a lower shelf along with my VCR, my 8-track, and all the other stuff I never use.

 

[Michael Marklund]

Well the weekend came and went. Good news and bad news.

The rack did not arrive. Could not tear the system down and install the new amps.:frowning: Rack is coming from Canada and there was a dealy in shipping or whatever. Anyways, on a somewhat cool note, they're taking another 10% off.(Dealer already took 10% off when I purchased the rack.) Suppose that's a little relief.

Went and bought a new cassette deck. ES model from Sony. Kinda cool deal...Deck is $300.00 retail. On sale for $100.00! and they had an additional 20% off this weekend. Paid $79.00 for the deck. Hard to beat that! (NIB, btw)

Although adding the new amps is delayed a week or so, the money saved will allow me to get the third monoblock by the time the rack arrives. Like I said, some good news and some bad news.

Will keep waiting for rack and post comments on amps in a week or so,
Michael