Official Outlaw Owners thread

I own a LFM-2 that is used in a 2.1 bedroom system, and I'm very, very pleased with it.

And I just ordered a LFM-1 Plus last night...

At $499 it was a deal I couldn't pass up. It's going to be replacing an Adire Rava in the living room. Not that there's anything wrong with the Rava, I think it's a good sub - very study and well made - but, it was my first sub and I chose to go with a sealed design.

In hind sight, given the size and nature of the room and the fact that it is used more for HT than music, I think a vented design with more output might work better. I'm eager to get the LFM-1 plus and see how they compare. If it sounds as good as the LFM-2, but on a bigger scale for the bigger room, I'll be thrilled.

Interesting eyebomb, as I have both a Rava and an LFM-1 (not the + model). IMO the Rava sounds tighter, and it does go lower in my room, my Velodyne SMS-1 shows output to 22 hz before rolling off on the Rava, and down to 25hz with the LFM-1. I'm sure the LFM-1 plus goes lower though. I prefer the Rava overall, but both are great subs for the $. I'm actually in the process of upgrading them both to a pair of TC sounds TC-12 drivers, each in a 2.5 cf sealed enclosure (I prefer the sound quality of sealed subs) and each powered by a buttkicker amp.

deneb, thanks for the information. I'm not surprised the Rava sounds tighter; that's one of the reasons I chose the Rava a few years ago - I can't stand loose, boomy bass when listening to music.

However, I've ended up using my main system more for HT than music as I usually put on the headphones for music listening (my wife rarely wants to hear my music cranked up as loudly as I do).

My system is in my living room, which is an "acoustically challenged" space. The sub is up against a wall that is really only 3/4 of a wall (it separates the living room and kitchen and is topped by a plant shelf kind of thing). That whole space (living room and kitchen) share a large vaulted ceiling. I think the Rava has a hard time generating the "oomph" to fill it as much as I would like. By comparison, the LFM-2 we have in our bedroom sounds incredible. The bedroom is a medium-sized room and the LFM-2 is up against a fully structural wall, near the corner.

I'm hoping that the LFM-1 Plus has the extra output to sound a little better for HT than the Rava. I'll experiment with the different tunings (plug, no plug) to see which sounds better.

I really can't say enough about how pleased I am with the LFM-2 in our bedroom. I highly recommend that sub for a small room application. I have it paired with a pair of HTD (Home Theater Direct) bookshelfs - the now discontinued Level 4's - that I'm also very pleased with.

I'll be sure to post back with my thoughts on the LFM-1 Plus when it arrives and I've had some time to play with it.

Anyone know if Outlaw is putting out a pre/pro that will be having HDMI anytime soon? I would have jumped on the 990 a long time ago, but nobody uses DVI anymore.

Thoughts?

Just ordered the LFM-1 Plus. The price was right for $499. I now have an entire home theater system sitting in boxes waiting for my house to get finished!

I just got my LFM-1 Plus on Thursday. It's my first sub, so the honeymoon's not over yet. I was afraid of getting sloppy sounding bass, but so far I'm having fun with it for music. Will be running it's paces in HT soon, and I'm confident there will be no problem there.

Paul,

I would wait until the fall and check out everyone's offerings. I tried a 970 and it was nice but my TV (Sony) was not tolerant of the DVI switching, in addition the unit suffered from what Outlaw calls the "no audio" bug. I was told by Outlaw that a DVI based KVM switch should trick the TV into thinking that the video signal was always there but they couldn't give me a timeframe for the software patch so I had to return it. It sounded great but I couldn't deal with it's shortcomings. DVI is dead so just wait for units with HDMI 1.3.

Ron

I have a new house and a baby on the way so I had to keep my budget tight. My theme was best bang for the buck.

A friend of mine had a home theater room built and installed in-wall Sonance speakers. They come in pairs, so to get fronts, rears, and a center, he had to buy 3 pair leaving him with an extra speaker. I knew I wanted to go with in-wall for aesthetics, but had no idea where to start. Well, said I could have his extra speaker, so that made my decision real easy I know a lot of people frown on in-wall set ups and if I hadn't heard these myself, I wouldn't have considered them. The rears are in-ceiling, but the speakers pivot and they'll be installed on a vaulted ceiling, so they will angle on 2 axis and their main footprint will be much larger than the "flashlight" cone pointing straight down.

I never would have guessed when I started doing research that I would end up with a JVC receiver, but it got great reviews, uses a digital amp so it's very small and is supposed to sound very clean, supports HDMI switching, and came in at a MUCH lower price than models with similar features. Plus I found a website that sells refurbished models and got it for $320.

I lied; there are two components I don't have yet: DVD player and TV. I don't think I need to explain why I'm going with an Oppo DVD player, but I'll have it in a couple of weeks. I've decided to go with the Sony KDS-60A2020 rear projection LCD TV. Again, great reviews, HDMI inputs, 1080p native resolution, and price seems right. Ultimate Electronics has the older A2000 model on sale for $1900 which I'd REALLY love to get, but I think I have to wait (stupid bills and groceries and gas). I have a Hitachi rear projection HDTV and a Panasonic LCD HDTV that I can make due with for now.

Speakers
Fronts/Center
Sonance Symphony S623T (in-wall)

Rears
Sonance Symphony S623TR (in-ceiling)

Sub
Outlaw, of course!

Receiver
JVC RX-D702B

DVD Player
Oppo DV-981HD

TV
Sony KDS-60A2020

Any sub pics??? Actual in use not web?? Especially close up for detail in craftsmanship.

I'm another guy with an LFM-1+ "in the mail", it should be here on the 30th. I'm going to be matching it with a set of Aperion towers, center and dipole/bipole surrounds. I jumped on the Outlaw after hearing about the sale but unfortunently, another key component to my system is an Onkyo TX-SR805 AVR and it doesn't look like that'll ship until the end of June. So, I'll have a rather large black box sitting around ticking my wife off for over a month until I can make it make sounds and really tick her off. Looking forward to hearing your experiences in setting this sub up and calming the wife down.

I just received the LFM-1 plus and have been enjoying it. My current setup is NHT SB-3s for the front and HDP-2 surrounds with an Integra 8.2 receiver. The sub blends nicely for music and home theater....not calling undo attention to itself for music but slamming when a movie soundtrack calls for it.

My old sub was a Sunfire mk1 that has been giving me trouble for the last couple of years. To my ears the outlaw has much cleaner bass output and I like the new end table for the living room. I have a smallish living room and the outlaw provides all of the low end I need for the square footage. The total cost of $565 was also a pretty good deal.....The sunfire is currently getting factory service and will promptly be sold once it returns.

I have been using LFM-1 for my other two channel stereo setup and it performed flawlessly. I have separate HT room with differents subs but someday I like to put LFM-1 into my HT actions and compare them. If you are looking for most bang for the buck, Outlaw products are excellent choice.

I've officially joined the club. After a few weeks of research, I found that the LFM-1 Plus was the right choice for me. I am well versed in car audio yet I'm somewhat of a noob to the home audio game. When I saw JL Audio was making subs for HT, I had to take a look at them. I have 2 W-7's in my car and the wifey's car has 3 W-3's (yeah, I'm a bass head). But I quickly realized they would be WAAAAYYYYYY out of my price range.

Needless to say, it all led to me purchasing the Plus late last night. Which leads me to a question. How long did the shipping take for some of you guys? I live in CA so if there are any west coasters in here maybe you could let me know. Also, what shipping method is used? Thanks in advance! 100!

I bought the LFM-1 Plus on its last day of sale - 5/31/07. I got it about a week later. It's now sitting downstairs in my family room. For a while, I was running a 0.1 HTS. That's right, no speakers. I hooked up my just-received Onkyo TX-SR 605 receiver and a Sony Discman CD player. I'm using crappy cabling. This is all temp. until my 5 AV123 x-series floorstanding speakers (a pair should arrive any day now) and get quality cables from MonoPrice.com.

During this weekend, I got tired of listening to only sub-120 Hz content from my CDs (see above post). So I hooked up a pair of old JVC speakers (from a shelf stereo system) and am now enjoying 2.1 sound - still playing CDs from that Sony Discman as a source. I can't hook it up to the TV b/c my cables aren't long enough. And since my soon-will-be-replaced TV is CRT, I don't want to place the sub close to it since I assume the Outlaw sub is not magnetically shielded.

The sub has been performing great. I hooked up a Radio Shack SPL meter to my aforementioned 2.1 HTS and have registered upper 100s dB. I can't push it too loud b/c the sub is rattling the hell out of its feet (standing on the carpet spikes and discs it came with) and my ceramic floor tile. Even though the bottom of the discs is rubber, it's still causing massive vibration that can only be cured if I put half my body weight on the top of the sub. Any suggestions? I don't want to remove the discs b/c I'm thinking the spikes may damage my floor tiles. TIA.

Auralex Gramma?

I also use the auralex gramma to isolate the LFM1+ from my raised plywood sub structure and it made a difference in the resonace of the floor, greatly reducing it.

For the sub shipping, my unit came from Irvine and got to me in a couple of days, I forget which carrier was used.

Do you mean this? That looks like an interesting product. I assume you'd put the sub w/ carpet spikes (but no discs) right on this riser. Thanks - I'll look into it.

Yes, the "new" version of the gramma is the same size as the older version of the subdude. I purchased mine at guitar center, they had 3 in stock when I went to buy one, so they seem to be common amongst the live band crowds. I use the same spikes that come with the sub and just drop it on top of the gramma.

Thanks, that's what I figured. The only problem I can foresee is that with the Gramma, the height of the sub might be too tall. Normally, it's no big deal. But I plan to put the sub right next to a DLP TV I'll soon purchase. That TV will be wider than my TV stand and will "spill over" into the air above the sub. It might be a close call if the Gramma riser is 2.75" tall. The carpet spikes probably go right through the Gramma, I'd imagine, unless that riser is very solid.

The platform of the gramma is plywood, the spikes will not go thru it. Thus, the height will be the sub height plus the height of the gramma.

Ahh, I see. I thought it was like a thick cork material where spikes could penetrate it like a nail. I'm going to measure my TV stand and then go to a store to measure the "feet" of the Samsung DLP TV I'm looking to buy, and see if that height would clear the sub + 2.75" (rounded off to 3") for the Gramma.

I've been enjoying my LFM-1 Plus for a couple months now and I still think it's the best audio purchase I've made in a very long time. Great value too! It's working very well with my REL Storm III. My bass response in the room is much more balanced now. I watch Superman Returns on HD DVD the other night and rocked the house!

D

I'm loving mine too. It doesn't get much buzz on these boards, but for its price it's tough to beat. It absolutely rocks on the Nine Inch Nails blu-ray in TrueHD. I think with the reputation of Hsu and SVS, Outlaw needs to keep these subs on sale if they want to remain competitive (like they did with their $499 special on the LFM-1 Plus). That was a killer deal. I wish I had the funds at the time to buy two for $949. I also like the down firing ports and woofer. I don't dig the sidefiring woofer and ports of the Hsu, which is one reason I didn't get the VTF-3 MkIII (even if it does edge out the LFM-1 Plus in performance). The down-firing arrangement of the Outlaw makes it more flexible in placement, something important for those of us who move often.

I've read that the LFM-1 Plus sub is equivalent to the Hsu VTF 3.2 sub. Is it any coincident that Hsu no longer sells the VTF 3.2?

Hey guys, just wanted to know if this is a good deal. ebay item# 290141198355 its a LFM1 for $300 new.