Some initial thoughts after a few days with a 990

jrlouie

Well, I've had it over the weekend so I can probably give initial impressions. Probably over time they may change.
First thing, and everyone says this, it is large. Barely fits in my rack.
My girlfriend and I immediately noticed that the surround speakers are more audible. But that could've been due to the amplifier upgrade since my surrounds had previously been powered by the Onkyo whereas the other speakers had separate amplification. So I'm not sure.
I feel the center channel dialogue is much clearer. I've always complained about the LSiC, but after this change it is clear and I find myself having the overall volume much lower just because now I can hear everything being said, easily. I had an M200 hooked up to the center at one point and still had problems. So that makes me feel it was an upstream problem, either cabling or my AVR. Previously I had to bump up the center channel higher than the mains where now they're all equal yet I can still hear the dialogue great. Maybe this is due to a single multi-channel amp or maybe the better processing and the LSiC was just revealing all imperfections.
I also seem to be able to hear surround effects more when watching regular TV. It seemed like before most of my TV channels were all collapsed to the center speaker whereas now I actually hear surround effects.
I watched a Coldplay concert DVD I use as reference material. I noticed just slightly more detail such as hearing the pick pluck a string rather than only hearing the note. I would say also that with this DVD my Onkyo sounded better with Dolby Digital rather than DTS, which seemed odd to me. Now, the DTS sounds as good, or better.
I think the greater amount of crossover customization has allowed my center and surrounds to perform more to their potential also. Just a more dramatic and realistic experience.
The remote is very similar to my Onkyo remote, so there was hardly any learning curve for my girlfriend. I only wish it was a learning remote so I could program my Cambridge Audio CDP into it. That's annoying, so I might have to buy a new universal. But I knew that it wasn’t learning from the get-go. Odd about the remote is the power button doesn't turn it on, only off. Seems they should've named it Off or Standby. To turn on the 990, you have to choose an input button like CD or DVD. When listening to the radio you have to either enter the preset number ("01"), or directly type the channel you want ("107.7"). Maybe a lot of people don't listen to the radio. But who knows what channel is on preset 24 for example. Scrolling would've been better in my opinion.
There are some things I'm not used to about it. On inputs that should have no video, when I push the volume button (and the volume graph pops up onscreen), my TV flashes white. This didn't happen with the Onkyo. What I think is happening is that the 990 actually completely turns off any signal in such a situation and then turns on the signal to OSD only when needed. I think this because an "Aux" window pop-up on my TV shows (native to the TV) and it usually only shows when there is absolutely no input. But I think my Onkyo had a signal always going to the TV, just maybe a black screen.
The 7.1 analog-in still uses the crossover whereas my Onkyo didn't. The only way to disable this would be to set all speakers to large in the 990.
Night-mode doesn't seem to work in DTS, only Dolby Digital.
Even though the CD input has no video associated, it still displays on the TV whatever the last video signal the 990 was processing. So if you VCR was left on, you'll see it. But if no signal is present, it'll turn off the signal to the TV all together.
They're working now on a firmware update to include various things, including the bass management issues you may or may not have heard about. I recommend reading the Outlaw forums to get up-to-date regarding the bass management if you are interested in the 990. Let me know if interested and I can briefly type up some things I noticed about it.
Under certain lighting conditions, the 7500 with my placement appears a darker shade, weird. But, maybe it is just my placement. You can kind of see it in the pics.

Overall, I do like it. Sound quality is great but I don't know exactly if that is the 990 or 7500. But I am still in that mode of getting used to it and tweaking it. And maybe with the firmware update, I might like it much, much more. We'll see. I also had tubes in the mix before where now I don't, so I'm still trying to get used to that. I would say overall I feel I got my money's worth and it'll even be better after the firmware update.

jrlouie

After rocking out a little today, got a little excited. Thought I'd share the excitement.

schwarcw

Congrats with the new equipment! Nice writeup, I haven't heard any Outlaw products but I've heard a lot of good things about them. Enjoy!:)

McLoki

Very nice write up.... As I mentioned before, we have almost the same audio environment. What model of Onkyo did you upgrade from? Do you notice much of an improvement in the front channels as well? (you mentioned center and rear)

I'm glad you mentioned the negatives as well. While I do not know how much they will effect me, it is nice knowing them going in rather than being surprised by them after the fact.

Thanks again,

Michael

Numbernine

God, that thing is huge. I was originally considering the 990, but I don't think there is any way it would fit inside of my entertainment centre - I've opted for the 1070 receiver instead; hopefully it will arrive soon!

jrlouie

McLoki,
I had an Onkyo TX-DS797. So far, I haven't noticed a significant change with my towers. But I'm guessing maybe that's just because of the lesser quality setup (or issues so to speak) for the center and surrounds. Plus it is a little harder to tell because I had a CDP through tubes directly to M200's before. So it was just completely different and had that cool tube sound. But, it's hard to completely say. You know I mentioned hearing more details on a reference DVD, but where are those details exactly coming from. Towers? Center? So maybe those details are via the towers So maybe improvements I've heard are from the towers. Sorry to be a little vague there, but I guess I could say I haven't noticed a huge change in 2-channel only. But again, I had tubes before. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Holydoc

McLoki wrote:

Very nice write up.... As I mentioned before, we have almost the same audio environment. What model of Onkyo did you upgrade from? Do you notice much of an improvement in the front channels as well? (you mentioned center and rear)

McLoki,

I am wondering if the extra bit of detail that he is hearing now is because of the amp and not the receiver. I know when I hooked up that Outlaw 770 amp to my Onkyo, the Onkyo sounded totally different. I even wrote up a review on this site of the huge difference.

This theory that it is the amp causing the difference would also support the fact that the 2-channel does not sound differently. Since in 2-channel, you are not draining the power like you would in 5.1 or 7.1.

McLoki

I thought he said that he had the front stage run off separate amps. Only the rear speakers were running off the AVR. The 797 is the top of the line model that year. (2 models above my 777 - same year) I am sure it could handle 2 LSi7's since they are pretty close to 6 ohm speakers.

If I end up going the outlaw route, I will have to schedual it with Opus to test his rotel against it. Then again - maybe I could schedual it with a PolkFest and we could all compare it against other pre-amps.

I was never one to believe the pre-amp made THAT much difference in the sound, but listening to the Rotel on my system and switching back and forth between that and my onkyo (with the same section of War of the Worlds) made me a believer.

Michael

peteran

I think it's the AMP. I have The onkyo Tx-Ds797 and it sounds great in comparison to similar class receivers outhere.
My speakers have been begging me for more power for years and I'm looking into the Outlaw 7125, the 797 does excellent processing and leave it for now.

jrlouie

McLoki wrote:

I thought he said that he had the front stage run off separate amps. Only the rear speakers were running off the AVR.

True. I had M200's on the towers, a Crest Audio Vs650 professional amp on the LsiC, and the Onkyo for the surrounds. At one point I also had a M200 on the LsiC, and the Vs650 on the towers (just switched).

To be honest, I am now a fan for a 5.1 setup to have a muti-channel amp rather than one amp here, a different amp there. It just seems more seemless, realistic, and smooth all around. Everything blends together very well. I haven't had much of a chance to watch movies yet, just one concert DVD. But I plan to remedy that this evening if possible and watch a movie. Kind of anxious.

McLoki

peteran wrote:

I think it's the AMP. I have The onkyo Tx-Ds797 and it sounds great in comparison to similar class receivers outhere.
My speakers have been begging me for more power for years and I'm looking into the Outlaw 7125, the 797 does excellent processing and leave it for now.

It's really funny, but that is the same thing I said till I heard a nice pre-amp in my system. (already had the amp)

Once you get separate amplification, you really owe it to yourself to test out a pre-amp just to hear what you have been missing. (It will be alot more than you thought.) If you don't like it or don't notice much of a change, return it - at least you will know.

Michael

peteran

McLoki wrote:

It's really funny, but that is the same thing I said till I heard a nice pre-amp in my system. (already had the amp)

Once you get separate amplification, you really owe it to yourself to test out a pre-amp just to hear what you have been missing. (It will be alot more than you thought.) If you don't like it or don't notice much of a change, return it - at least you will know.

Michael

Mclocki, my plans for now are to get an Amp. I was thinking of getting either 990 or 970 also, but with the new technology coming out TRUEHD, DD+ and DTSHD I would rather wait a couple years for a Pre-Pro.

fireshoes

I see the LSi's are still naked too.

danger boy

jrlouie wrote:

McLoki,
You know I mentioned hearing more details on a reference DVD, but where are those details exactly coming from. Towers? Center? So maybe those details are via the towers So maybe improvements I've heard are from the towers.

My situation is a little different... the only thing I swapped out when I got my Outlaw 990 was the pre amp. I already had external mono block amps. The "detail" i am now hearing similar to jrlouie's is for me at least coming from the pre amp. The 990 has excellent discreet 96/24 chips in it.

I'll write up my initial thoughts later tonight.. i got my 990 pre dialed in over the weekend too.

jrlouie

Noticed something today. I popped in a slow Jimi Hendrix blues song I like and it has a slow and deep bass line. When Noel Redding hits the lowest note in the tune, that note is more apparent and mabye I could say extended. In other words, I can here that note for the full length of its life whereas with the M200's on my towers it seemed to taper off. FYI during this I had the Cambridge CDP utilizing the analog in on the 990 with the towers set to large and processing set to bypass.
Just something I felt like I noticed.

McLoki

If you get some time and are bored, I would love to hear your impressions of the difference with Just the 990 over your Onkyo AVR. (for movie playback - with no other changes made.)

What I did to test the Rotel vs my Onkyo was to hook the Onkyo up to my DVD player with Coax and the Rotel up to my DVD with an Optical cable. (My dvd happend to have both)

Play the scene in War of the Worlds from where the first pod comes out of the ground (watever the chapter start in that scene is) till Tom steals the Van.

Swap the cables going to your amp over to the other processor, backup the dvd to the same chapter start, and play it again.

I was amazed at the difference that just the pre-amp made. I would love to hear your impressions of a similar test with the 990.

Michael

Holydoc

McLoki wrote:

If you get some time and are bored, I would love to hear your impressions of the difference with Just the 990 over your Onkyo AVR. (for movie playback - with no other changes made.)

What I did to test the Rotel vs my Onkyo was to hook the Onkyo up to my DVD player with Coax and the Rotel up to my DVD with an Optical cable. (My dvd happend to have both)

Play the scene in War of the Worlds from where the first pod comes out of the ground (watever the chapter start in that scene is) till Tom steals the Van.

Swap the cables going to your amp over to the other processor, backup the dvd to the same chapter start, and play it again.

I was amazed at the difference that just the pre-amp made. I would love to hear your impressions of a similar test with the 990.

Michael

Oh I would love to hear your impressions of that as well.

McLoki

Just as an FYI - the differences I heard (with the Rotel 1066 VS my Onkyo 777 AVR) is best summed up by saying the Rotel just sounded more real.

The glass in the store windows breaking was right where it should have been (between the left front speaker and the left surround) and the actual breaking noise sounded like my wall was made of glass and it just fell to the ground.

everything was like it was in 3-d (sonically speaking). The speakers no longer played the sound - it was like you were just there in the middle of all the action.

Putting the Onkyo back in its place was like the magic was just turned off. everything was coming out of the speakers again (rather than just out in space somewhere) and the tone was off. Not a lot, but enough that you knew what the sound was, but also knew it was recorded and played back - it just lost that live "you are there" sensation that it had with the rotel.

I would like to know if you have a similar response with the 990.

Michael

cewolcott

Thanks for the review. The basement is two weeks from completion and I was just going to move my Yamaha HTR-5280 downstairs and pick-up some of the 2200 mono-blocks to power the front L/C/R LC-265i in-walls and leave the LC80i rears hookup to the Yamaha. But I was thinking why buy three mono's lets upgrade to the Outlaw 7500. That decision then leads to well if I am buying the amp why not a new pre-amp so I can use the balanced audio outputs.

So does my logic seem correct?

I have a little bit of free money since the LCD TV I wanted, Sharp LC-45D90U, is not being brought into the US. I now have to wait until Oct for the new line of Sharp LCDs.

jrlouie

McLoki wrote:

If you get some time and are bored, I would love to hear your impressions of the difference with Just the 990 over your Onkyo AVR. (for movie playback - with no other changes made.)

Ah man! You guys are going to make me pull that 990 back out and plug in the Onkyo, re-calibrate, and test. Whew. I will have to be bored that day I'll try to get around to it soon, but it may be a little bit.

I did watch the first non-concert DVD tonight. It more or less was in-line with what I noticed on the concert DVD I previously watched. Surround effects more prevelant, clear dialogue. Probably though I'm not quite the movie critic and better at noticing improvements/degradation with music.

On a side note. I asked Outlaw if they intended on adding Night Mode to the DTS processing. My Onkyo had that. Here is their response.
"The Night Mode is only available within the Dolby Digital processing
algorythms, dts does not offer a dynamic range control for night
listening. I do not anticipate them adding it, however I can not speak for
them."

JWBurns

Great looking rack.. Which is it?

Holydoc

jrlouie wrote:

On a side note. I asked Outlaw if they intended on adding Night Mode to the DTS processing. My Onkyo had that. Here is their response.
"The Night Mode is only available within the Dolby Digital processing
algorythms, dts does not offer a dynamic range control for night
listening. I do not anticipate them adding it, however I can not speak for
them."

Who is the THEM? I thought Outlaw was responding to your email.

shack

Holydoc wrote:

Who is the THEM? I thought Outlaw was responding to your email.

Ditgital Theater Systems of course...(now just DTS)

jrlouie

Holydoc wrote:

Who is the THEM?

I think he was referring to the people who provide the firmware for the 990. Yeah, I'm not sure why they aren't willing to consider themselves and the providing company as one. From a customer's perspective, it is simply Outlaw, and he should be able to speak
But maybe Shack was right, and he was referring to DTS. Seems like it is there though since it was on my Onkyo. But maybe Onkyo had their own range compression or something.

cewolcott

jrlouie is that the Sanus rack furniture the Outlaw 990 is sitting in? How stable is it in the rack?

The top shelf is rated at 60 lbs, Middle shelfs at 50 lbs and the bottom shelf at 70 lbs.

How was it hooking up the wires? Was the back beam in the way?

jrlouie

Yes, I believe it is a Sanus. To be honest, I was a little disappointed in its stability. Left to right it is stable, but push it front to back and it sways pretty easy. The back beam wasn't so bad, until I got the Outlaw equipment since they are deeper. Not that it was terribly hard hooking stuff up, but the 990/7500 protrudes a little due to cabling and that back beam. I have the matching TV unit which is more stable, but probably just because it is shorter.

danger boy

I won’t mention how large this unit is… it’s big. It’s about 28 pounds… nearly as heavy as the Marantz SR5000 it replaced.

I’m going to cover what I don’t like about the Outlaw 990 pre amp, since that list is much shorter.. then I’ll go into what I Do like about it.

I bought a Marantz SR5000 receiver back in 1999. Used it with external amps I purchased a few years after that. I know the 70wpc wasn’t much. I was running RT800i’s for fronts at the time with CS400i center and FX/300i’s for surrounds. It always felt like the Marantz lacked detail in the highs. While bass was good, the treble was muted or muddy. That may be all the guts it had, older outdated gear has it’s limits on how good it can sound.

Fast forward to end of 2005 when I begin thinking about finally making the jump to separates. I’ve always heard separates is the way to go. So I did my homework and decided I needed to demo the Outlaw Audio 990 pre amp. It was a no brainer over the Outlaw 970 pre amp. I also looked at B&K Ref 50 and listened to it, and a NAD pre too. Both were more $$ than the Outlaw one

I order it and it got here cross country in 5 days. Yay!

Set it up, connections go smoothly. I like the layout of the back end a lot. Plenty of room to hook everything up. I tend to use locking RCA’s on most of my interconnects.. so even with all the room on the back of the unit, the locking RCA’s are a close fit if they are next to each other. For some odd reason all the Left inputs fit just fine, but the Right RCA inputs fit extremely tight. I think I toasted one RCA trying to get it inserted.

Then came set up. I hooked up all the amps and speakers. I had one surround wrong, so I fixed that wiring before moving on. The on screen menu worked. This is the first pre amp I’ve used that has OSD. I have my DVD player going to the pre amp via good high quality component video cables. From the pre amp to my HDTV the same way. WOW! The quality of the picture was right on. I was using Toy Story 2 for a demo, for video and audio. I know it’s not good to use an animated movie for proper color.. since they tend to be over exaggerated. But it looked damn good to me. No added noise at in the video, which is what I was hoping for. YES!

I have to mention that when I turned on the OSD when it’s got a DVD punched up as the source. The OSD goes haywire for a split second and as it’s making the OSD appear. It’s only briefly, but that is the only source I use where it does this. The OSD is then visible, but the background is a blank gray screen. Very odd, and I don’t like it. Any other video source and the OSD is transparent, it’s overlaid on the source video. I like that much better.

I’m also not used to having to scroll thru menu after menu to be able to adjust the subwoofer output. As you know subwoofer LFE output differs from material to material. On my old Marantz, I could adjust it right from the remote, simple and effective. Now I have to go into the menu a few layers deep. This pre amp has tons of tweaks for settings. If you like to tweak the heck out of your pre amp.. you’ll enjoy this.

The tuner is not so easy to maneuver around using the remote. This part took me the longest of any other set up to figure out. I’m still not comfortable using the tuner. I had it program it’s own stations, and left it at that for now. I’ll get back to the tuner and reprogram it later. I don’t listen to much FM in the HT set up. The tuner is a big jump over the older Marantz. It sounds much cleaner.

Automatic set up using the included microphone. This went fine except it kept stopping before it completed the test tone set up several times. Giving me error after error on this and that. Finally got it fixed after about 20 minutes of fudging the settings. It set all my speakers to small? I have Monitor 7’s as fronts, CS400i as center and those FX300i’s as side surrounds. No back surrounds. The test tone coming from the pre amp is hella loud. OMG! It made my subwoofer (Adire Audio Dharman subwoofer) bottom out. It popped, I hate that ****. I only had the subwoofer set to 9 o’clock. I turned it down to 8 o’clock. Bottomed out again when I ran the test tones. The test tones are actually two different sounding tones. The first tone sets the distance for the speakers, the second one sets the level. It appeared to set the distance just right. The levels were all set to zero. I thought that was weird. Surround were way to loud. I had to back them off to about –6.

Likes:

The list here is fortunately longer than the dislikes. Ha ha ha. I really like the component video and how the OSD can be viewed in any video input. Comp, s-video and composite. It up converts to the component output.. so I don’t have to switch back and forth to see the OSD. Nice feature.

Here is what really surprised me. CD’s and 2 channel music listening sounds superb. I’m not sure what exactly it is doing that is impressing me so much. It’s probably the DAC’s. I have my Marantz 4300 hooked up via analog L&R RCA’s. The soundstage and depth is wonderful. Remember I’m using Monitor 7B’s. with the peerless tweeters in them. Sounds really good to me. In stereo mode CD listening, you can also choose BYPASS and upconversion. I think here again I’m not used to having 192 kHz 24-bit DAC’s for all channels. Wonderful stuff those DAC’s.

Another favorite feature I really like is called Lip Sync Delay. It helps me match up the audio with the video. I guess digital TV’s take longer to process the picture. So the audio often times is off by a few milliseconds. Enough to notice it anyways. I set the delay on concert DVD’s between 25 and 50 ms delay. It works. Don’t ask me how, but it’s a beautiful thing once the lips and music matches again.

This pre has tons of audio and video connections. I ran out very fast of digital connections on my Marantz. This one so far it seems like I’m not using any at all. I don’t have an audio rack full of components, maybe that’s why. It has like 5 optical inputs, and two coax. More than enough for what I have or will need.

It’s not the perfect pre amp, but for my needs, it’s enough pre amp for me right now. I’m thinking of keeping it. I’ve programmed the codes for all the other components already. Maybe that’s a sign I like it.

cfrizz

Nice write up Al! What is the rack you have the Outlaw on? It looks nice & sturdy!

danger boy

thanks Cathy, the rack is some generic one i purchased at Fred Meyer a few years back. it's tall, with plenty of space for all my toys.

The tube TV nearly pushes that rack to it's weight limit. TV weights 180lbs. the rack i think holds up to 200 - 225lbs. :eek:

McLoki

danger boy wrote:

CD’s and 2 channel music listening sounds superb. I’m not sure what exactly it is doing that is impressing me so much. It’s probably the DAC’s. I have my Marantz 4300 hooked up via analog L&R RCA’s. The soundstage and depth is wonderful. Remember I’m using Monitor 7B’s. with the peerless tweeters in them. Sounds really good to me. In stereo mode CD listening, you can also choose BYPASS and upconversion. I think here again I’m not used to having 192 kHz 24-bit DAC’s for all channels. Wonderful stuff those DAC’s.

Just an FYI - if you are using analog cables to connect your CD player to your pre-amp, you are using the DAC's in your CD player for conversion.

If you want to hear what the DAC's in your 990 sound like for comparison, use a digital cable to connect the CD player to the 990. (this makes your CD player basically a transport)

Just wanted you to know - it would be worth the comparison just to see which DAC's you preferred.

Michael

danger boy

Michael, you're right guy.. i forgot. so that means if i use a digital cable.. i may see even more difference in the sound quality? nice... i do plan to get an digital cable pretty soon. the analog were just what i had in da house at the time.