Outlaw RR2150 Stereo Receiver, $649, http://www.outlawaudio.com/products/rr2150.html

I am looking at this receiver to run my zone 2 and 3 speakers. I definitely like feature set, esp the bass mgmt/control features.

If anyone owns this or has listened and compared it to other two channel amps, I'd appreciate your comments on the sound quality and operation.

Thanks.

ZinMe:
I have been using my RR 2150 as a preamp in my audio only system for several months now. I have it driving a B&K Reference 4420 dual mono amp and a pair of Magnepan MG 1.6 speakers. I am trying to find a subwoofer to reinforce the low end of the MG 1.6s (below 40 Hz) and at that point, I will employ the bass management capabilities of the 2150. I ran the 2150 as a receiver with a pair of Vandersteen 2CEs for a month (because my wife liked the smaller speakers - WAF, aarrgghh!!) and I liked it fine.

The only problem I have had is that controlling the volume with the remote doesn't work well - poor design or implementation, don't know which - but I don't want to shut down my system for the time required for Outlaw to fix it. So I can't really blame them. I think this was a very good investment - the combination of the feature set, the quality of Outlaw audio components, the price and the appearance. I have no regrets.

Sounds good-- thanks for your reply. Were the tone/bass mgmt capabilities of the 2150 good enough to get a good low freq boost with the smaller speakers?

ZinMe:
I'm not sure I understand your question... Both of my sets of speakers were full range speakers although the Vandersteens were shorter (3" as opposed to the 6' Magnepans). What the bass management feature of the 2150 does is to send everything below your selected frequency to a subwoofer. So, if your speakers only go down to 80 Hz, you select 80 Hz as your bass managment setting and then everything in the source signal below 80 Hz gets sent to the subwoofer output rather than to the speaker output. So there's no "boost"...

ZinMe:
I'm not sure I understand your question... Both of my sets of speakers were full range speakers although the Vandersteens were shorter (3" as opposed to the 6' Magnepans). What the bass management feature of the 2150 does is to send everything below your selected frequency to a subwoofer. So, if your speakers only go down to 80 Hz, you select 80 Hz as your bass managment setting and then everything in the source signal below 80 Hz gets sent to the subwoofer output rather than to the speaker output. So there's no "boost"...
Hi Mnilan,

My understanding was that the amp has a capability where it delivers a low end boost, essentially a Bass EQ function for smaller speakers. Here is the quote from their website--

"Front panel "speaker equalization" selector adds a half-octave of bass boost at a choice of frequencies to improve performance with compact bookshelf speakers"

I was just wondering if this feature was effective/useful or not. I have some outdoor speakers that can use this type of capability. I also listen to the living room zone at lower volume and believe that a "loudness"-like feature would help. I'm looking at some integrated amps which may not be considered as desireable in overall audio quality because they have a loudness capabability such as the Denon DRA-397. I'd rather go with something like the Outlaw for what I think would be better overall sonic quality with effective bass mgmt/boost for low volume and small speaker situations.

ZinMe:
I understand what you're asking now. I went back to the manual and I see where you got the idea...

Because I have full range speakers and don't have a subwoofer in that system yet, I have never used this feature. I tried it out with my current setup to see what effect it has. In essence, I could not detect any difference in sound at any frequency. I suspect this is because I don't have a subwoofer in the loop and/or because I am using an external amp that puts out 350 watts per channel (into 4 ohms) and lack of power is not one of my problems...

I don't think this feature works like a "loudness" switch but is intended to provide more amplifier power to "small" speakers because the frequency below 60 Hz (using that setting as an example) is redirected to the subwoofer. So (I'm still guessing here 8^) the amp has more power available to drive the restricted frequency range (above 60 Hz).

While I believe this would provide the sense of a "boost" in the lower frequencies of restricted range speakers, I strongly recommend that you talk to the Outlaw folks about this if it is a major consideration for you.

The bass management setting on the 2150 works, essentially, like the bass management on an A/V receiver (except it is analogue, not digital). If you plug in a sub, then select the xover, it will split the signal to the sub and the mains. Simply engaging this feature without a sub will only cut off lower frequencies from the mains, I suspect. Or, it may simply not come into play unless a sub is connected.