[treebumper]

My Outlaw 950 is giving out on me and I need a little help with finding its replacement.

Here's my system ;

Sharp LC-52D92U

Comcast/Motorola DCX 3400

Fronts; Paradigm Active 40

Rear;Paradigm active surrounds

Center: Paradgm monitor driven by Denon mono amp

HD DVD ac-30

Monoprice 4x1 HDMI switcher.


Room;

It measures 25' x 15' and the couch is 10 feet away from the tv.


I mostly use my system for watching television, playing Xbox and watching movies, in that order. I don't think that anything bigger than 5.1 would do me any good, assuming that they still make 5.0. I would be OK with a receiver, obviously one with preouts. I have looked around on here a little(50-60 hours) and I do like some of the features of the Integra Prepro, like HDMI conversion, HD Radio, Sirius/XM ready and Pandora. I don't like them enough to break my budget though.

I told my wife it would probably be around $600, so I should at least try to keep it under $1,000

. I am ok with hunting down used gear too.

I really appreciate, in advance, any help I can get. It seems like their is probably a hundred products that could work for me and there is a very long thread going for each of them.


Thanks,

Adam

 

[RoboRay]

Some pre-pro options would be...


Emotiva UMC-1 = Brand new and has some issues... Some have been resolved, some still outstanding. Worth looking at, but be wary because of the current problems. Price is about $700, but there's a waiting list to get one.


Integra 40.1 = Continuation of Onkyo/Integra's line of mostly well-regarded pre-pros over the last 3 years. Can be found for around $1k. This would be my #1 recommendation, unless you need balanced outputs.


Integra 80.1 or Onkyo Pro 5507 = The 40.1's big brother, with balanced XLR outputs. Cost varies a good bit by seller, probably starting around $1500 up to $2000 or so. Outside your posted budget.


Used/Refurbished Integra 9.8 or 9.9, or their Onkyo Pro equivalent 885 or 886 = These have pretty much set the bar for recent pre-pros. The 9.9/886 adds a couple of nice features (such as Dynamic EQ and Dynamic Volume), but otherwise is pretty much the same as the 9.8/885 (which I have). Both have balanced XLR outputs. If you can find one, they should be between $600 and $1000.


I believe NAD and Marantz have models with similar capabilities, but I'm not familiar with the specifics.


Outlaw's 997 is still in limbo, AFAIK. It will be based on the Sherwood 972 receiver, which has issues to resolve.


There's tons of receiver options in that price range, too. Denon, Onkyo, Yamaha and Pioneer all have models worth looking at, but again, I'm not really up on their current models.