Outlaw 990

[toledoguy]

I'm in the process of rebuilding my audio system from the ground up. I don't have unlimited funds, but at the same time I can spend a reasonable amount of money, I'm not going to spend $20,000 for a new system, but I'll spend several thousand. I enjoy movies and need a good set up for HT. But I also am a bit of a music buff, and I really want higher quality 2 channel audio than can be obtained from big box retailer receivers.

After some research i've come to the conclusion to pair an Outlaw 990 with Rotel Amp(s), and Klipsch Speakers. Of course a CD player, a blu-ray DVD player, and HD cable box will be connected also. All units going through a Monster power conditioner.

My question to you is anybody have an Outlaw 990? Anybody have an opinion on it, compared it to other similarly priced pre/pros? Thanks

[kmcheng]

The Outlaw 990 does a fine job with standard definition DVD movies and a very decent job with 2-channel music. However, it may or may not be a good choice now, depending on what blu-ray player you are going to get.

Many blu-ray discs now have the uncompressed sound tracks. You will need a blu-ray player that can decode these sound tracks and output them in analog for the Outlaw. Most blu-ray players that I am aware of do not have this capability. The most future-proof and affordable blu-ray player, a.k.a. Sony PS3, can only output these codecs via HDMI, which the Outlaw cannot handle.

The uncompressed sound tracks are a remarkable improvement over the legacy Dolby Digital and DTS formats. Since you are rebuilding your system, your investment should be future-proof. Outlaw has not come up with a new product for a while now, so I would like to think that they are working on the HDMI capabilities in a new processor. Emotiva is also working on a new processor that can handle the new sound codecs via HDMI.

Denon, Onkyo, Sony, Pioneer etc. have receivers that have this HDMI capability. Rotel RSP 1069 is a also an option (at $2000+). However, there are not too many choices currently.

[deke]

I was in the same boat and chose a Onkyo 805 paired with a Rotel 1075 amp for precisely the reasons kmcheng mentions.

[Glenee]

There is a New Outlaw piece coming down the pike to replace the 990, looking for it around Late Fall or Early winter. The new emotiva's will be out sooner than that. Both pieces will do all thats avaliable to the General Public and more. All of these are fine products. I've seen some 990 going for $400 on Audiogon.