Alex Scoble's IT Notes - An Information Technology Blog

200 Watt home theater amp matchup: B&K 200.7 vs Outlaw 7700

I've been looking to upgrade my old Kenwood KM-X1 THX Ultra 6 channel x 100 Watt home theater amp for some time now. I wanted more power than the 100 watts the current amp provided as well as the ability to use 4 ohm speakers. In researching what amps would work for me, I kept coming across the same few names, particularly in the $2000 to $3000 budget range that I was looking at.

Ever since I found out about Outlaw Audio about 18 months ago I have been wanting to try out their Outlaw 7700 amp. It's a true balanced 200 watt x 7 channel design.

I really needed something to compare it to though and as luck would have it, when I went to the Beaverton Magnolia's on a Sunday, they had a closeout demo on a B&K 200.7 200 watt x 7 channel amp. As far as I can tell, it's not a true balanced design, but does have balanced XLR inputs. While not as heavily built as the Outlaw (the 7700 tops out at 93 lbs. while the 200.7 is around 75) it still got good reviews.

Both amps have the same 5 year warranty (although the B&K's is non-transferable, whereas the Outlaw's warranty is transferable to another person if you sell it within the warranty period) and both amps were costing me about $2000 ($1875 for the Outlaw, which retails for $2149, since it was B-Stock and $2000 for the B&K, which retails for $3000).

Both Outlaw and Magnolia allowed me to try the amps for 30 days.

Having bought the B&K, I went ahead and ordered the 7700 B-Stock as well as Outlaw's bundle of 7 balanced cables to hook up the amp to my pre-amp/processor (an Integra Research RDC-7.1 for those interested).

The build quality of the B&K is pretty good. It has a machined "silver" aluminum face (also comes in a version with black face for those preferring that), while the rest of the amp is black and the toroidal transformer is shielded, which is good. It has heatsinks attached to each of the 7 channel power sections. However, mostly what I noticed were how many fuses the amp has. There are 7 screw in fuses for each channel in the back and there are at least another 14 visible inside the amp itself. Kind of speaks well for how protected the amp is from power issues.

The build quality on the Outlaw, however, can only be summed up as "tank like". It's all black (not gray as it appears on the website), has two huge toroidal transformers in the front with the rest of the innards pretty much taken up by heatsinks. It wasn't easy unboxing and getting this thing into the rack, let me tell you.

In hooking up and playing with both amps, the first thing different between the two that I noticed was a noticeable humming coming from the Outlaw amp. When I first got it, I just had one power circuit (more on this later) running everything in the home theater, plus whatever lamps were connected to that circuit. Well the humming of the Outlaw amp got worse when certain things were turned on like the Xbox 360, but never totally went away regardless of what I did.

I worked with Outlaw support and got a replacement 7700 sent to my home after a bare minimum of troubleshooting.

During the 5 day wait, I played a bit more with the B&K. While it sounded very good, it was hard to tell how much better it sounded over the old amp. The old Kenwood was no slouch. With it in my system I was able to push out 110 db during the "gatling gun" scene of The Matrix, however details at or near reference level always sounded thin. Whereas the B&K with its extra power never seemed to have this issue. I started noticing details with it on certain music tracks that I hadn't heard before, but when I went back to the Kenwood I noticed the same details in every case. At any rate, the B&K will be better for 4 ohm speakers and has that one extra channel for 7.1 sound that I wanted.

The new Outlaw 7700 came in and again I had issues with humming of the transformers. At this point I have to say that yes, it was loud enough to be annoying. I could hear the humming over the whine of the Xbox 360 fans when no music was playing and this is at my listening position which is at least 7 feet from the amp. I was starting to get discouraged with the Outlaw amp. I didn't expect to spend this kind of money to have "mechanical" noise coming from the amp.

And since the B&K didn't exhibit this behavior, it made it clear that it was an issue with the amp and not my power. However, I continued to work with Outlaw support to get the issue resolved. They even sent me out a PS Audio Hum-buster to see if it would help the issue (which it didn't).

In the end, I ended up paying an electrician another $350 two install two separately grounded 20 amp power circuits for the home theater. Not something I wanted to do just then, but it's a good idea to do it anyhow when you are feeding power to 200 watt x 7 channel amps.

However, that didn't really make a difference to the Outlaw amp. It quieted it down a bit but not to the point where I couldn't hear it at the listening position.

OK, enough about the humming transformers for now. How did the Outlaw amp sound? Good. I couldn't hear any real differences between the Outlaw and the B&K. The Outlaw might have had more real power, but it never really came through during playing. Should point out that this speaks well for the Outlaw. In performance terms, it held its own with the B&K.

So for the average person, the differences between the two? The Outlaw costs less normally (although I think you can pretty easily find the B&K for the same price or similar to what I paid), is heavier (make sure you have a rack that can handle it), handles heat better because of the extra heatsinks, has what I think in general is the better amp design (aside from the transformers) but might bother you with transformer noise. The B&K weighs less, gets hotter (which long term might shorten the life span of the amp), but has a quiet transformer.

The handful of other Outlaw 7700 and 7500 (same amp just with 5 channels instead of 7) owners that responded to my query on the Outlaw forum said that their amps were dead quiet, although there was at least one person who recently purchased a used 7500 that had the same issue, so you may or may not have the same issues as me. For someone who can put their 7700 into a closed cabinet, this would not be an issue and I certainly wouldn't put the B&K into a closed cabinet because of how much heat it puts out.

In the end, I chose to keep the B&K amp, even though it was more expensive. I just couldn't live with the humming of the transformers.

Was fun to experiment with the different amps. For the record, it's just about impossible to do A/B testing with the amps since you have to recalibrate the system to reference level every time you switch amps. It also showed that, in the end, specs don't really matter much as the Outlaw has the better specs in just about every case, except for rated power for 4 ohm speakers.

Also shows why buying products with solid return policies is very important. When you are spending this kind of money, you want to make sure you are happy with the results. You are doing neither yourself nor the manufacturer any favors by keeping products that you aren't happy with.

So which amp would I ultimately recommend? For those who have a closed rack, I would go with the 7700 hands down. It's just better built for those sorts of conditions, although it's still seriously recommended to put the amp on its own power circuit. For those who can't get the B&K for $2000, I would also recommend the 7700. Also you might not be sensitive to the humming of the transformers or can otherwise live with it, in which case the Outlaw would also be for you.

I can't compare the levels of support given by both companies as I only dealt with Outlaw support, but the support that I did receive was superb. They went above and beyond to try to make things right with me.

Having said that, for all of us that don't meet any of the caveats I specified above, the B&K is the better choice, in my opinion.

Sony SXRD HDTV: Careful when replacing the lamp

This was originally posted on my Computerworld blog.

As I blogged yesterday, I had to get my Sony SXRD HDTV fixed because it caught the "yellow stain" bug.

I learned something interesting about the design of these particular HDTVs from the repair person.

There are two microswitches that the TV uses to detect that there is a lamp and that the lamp door has been properly closed.

Problem with the design is that both of these microswitches are very fragile and can be damaged pretty easily.

So keep this in mind when replacing the lamp on your SXRD set. Be very careful when taking the lamp door off, when taking out the old bulb and inserting the new one and when putting the lamp door back on.

Otherwise your $250 replacement of your SXRD lamp could turn out to be a bit more expensive.

Sony SXRD HDTV: "Yellow stain" woes

This article was previously posted on my Computerworld blog.

This I've previously written about the Sony SXRD HDTV sets and my experiences with them here and here.

Unfortunately, while I still like the sets and think that the technology is the best out there dollar for dollar for large screen TVs (50" and up), I have recently run into a problem with my set.

My set developed what is being called elsewhere as the "yellow stain" issue. Basically, something goes wrong with the display engine (probably in the SXRD chips themselves) that makes the TV start to put a yellow tinge to the display, most notably in the upper right hand corner of the screen. The longer the TV is on, particularly when displaying static images, the worse it gets. The problem goes away after the set is turned off for a few hours, but then comes back again after the SXRD HDTV has been on for a little while.

If you display a static image for 30 minutes or so, such as the main menu of the Xbox 360, the problem will show up when you switch to watch something else. Again, the problem mainly manifests itself on the upper right hand of the screen, but you will start to see the "yellow stains" elsewhere as well.

Another good example? Play a game such as Need For Speed: Carbon on your SXRD set for 30 minutes or more and when you switch to watch something else, you will continue to see a yellow stain in the shape of the Heads Up Display (HUD) used for the cars in the game.

Now, not all SXRD sets have this issue, but apparently enough do that there is a class action lawsuit against Sony over the issue.

Anyhow, today I had a repair person out to replace the display engine for my 50" XBR SXRD unit, a process which took around 3 hours or so. I was lucky that it happened while the unit was under warranty.

Then again, since the repair does not extend my warranty, even for the replacement part, I may be out of luck if the issue happens again in 9 months time.

What's odd to me is that none of the large screen manufacturers that I know of are offering anything other than a 1 year warranty standard on their sets. Sony is no different in this regard. Yeah, sure you can buy an extended warranty, but when you are already spending several thousand dollars on a TV, it's eggregious to have to spend even more for what should be a standard item for a solid state TV.

Doesn't it strike anyone as odd that old CRT sets typically had a 3 year (or longer) warranty, but these new sets that should have lower failure rates (except for perhaps the bulbs in rear-projection units) than older sets have just 1 year?

Any way you toss it, based on the comments of the repair person who fixed my set, Sony does indeed have a PR problem on their hands (poor Sony, this is what PR problem number n+1 for them in the last year or so) in regards to the relatively high failure rate of what should be one of their biggest hit products.

But as I said at the opening of this article, I still see no other technology that compares to SXRD (when it's working at least). DLP is half baked as long as they are only using one display element and JVC's LCoS variety isn't nearly as sharp as SXRD, oh and all the other large screen offerings are quite a bit more expensive than the SXRD units as well.

I just hope that Sony does good for all the customers out there that are having the "yellow stain" issue with their SXRD sets. In particular, they should fix for free even those sets that have the problem beyond their warranty period.

I'm also wondering if anyone with a newer generation SXRD unit has run into this issue or whether Sony was able to resolve whatever the problem was with their manufacturing process.

In Portland and looking for TV?

Hi All,

If you are in Portland area and looking for a bigger used TV, I'm selling my old Mitsubishi 35".

I'm asking $350 or best offer and sweetening the deal with a Marantz DVD player and some good quality MIT audio and video cables.

You can see some pics and read more about it here on Craigslist.

Looking for 5.1 surround sound headphones: Is Tritton AX 360 headset the answer?

Recently I've been looking for a good gaming/music headset for my PC and perhaps other uses.

I've come across the Tritton AX (Audio Xtreme) 360 headset. It has some really cool features including true 5.1 surround by using 4 separate speakers in each earcup.

It also accepts Toslink or Digital Coax inputs, which means that it can be used with any device that outputs sound using either connection method.

For PCs that don't have Toslink or digital coax outputs, you can also use the outputs from a 5.1 sound card like the Creative Soundblaster Audigy series cards.

I do have some questions about the unit though. Such as is it comfortable to wear? It's not uncommon for me to game for 4 to 6 hours at a time, if not more and it's no good to me to get a headset that bothers me after 30 minutes or an hour. Unfortunately, I don't know of any local shops that carry them to try on...which is actually a problem with headsets and headphones in general.

How good does it sound? For the cost (they are typically found online for $150) they better sound pretty darn good and have decent bass without muddying mids and highs.

And lastly, how well do they work if just hooked up to a stereo output like the headset jack on a laptop as I would also like to have a pair of headphones to use for work so I can listen to music there.

If anyone knows the answer to these earth shattering questions, let me know.

Also if anyone knows of a good very comfortable set of headphones for music that cost between $50 and $100 that aren't by Bose, Sony or Sennheiser, please let me know...and they MUST be very comfortable...as in "I've just worn them for 8 hours and don't even notice them on my head" comfortable.

Connecting XBox to HDTV

I just got a used XBox classic from Chris Pirillo and wanted to hook it up to my new Sony High Definition TV (HDTV) (got the 50" SXRD, but more on that on a later post).

The original Microsoft HD Kit is very hard to find (try eBay if you really want one) and I couldn't find info on what connectors it supported for audio (it supports component RCA cables for video). So I passed on the few that I saw on eBay and got the Monstercable Gamelink 400 X instead. Instead of being sort of a breakout box like the Microsoft unit that required additional cables, the Gamelink is a cable bundle, in other words one end plugs into the A/V port on the back of the XBox and the other end has the three component RCA plugs plus the left and right RCA audio plugs.

If you want to output digital audio from your XBox, the Gamelink 400 X also has a miniplug built into it which you then plug in the Lightwave 100 X Fiber Optic Audio cable from Monstercable. So instead of using the left and right RCA audio plugs you'd use the Lightwave 100 X Toslink connector optical audio cable for audio.

One major complaint about the Monster Gamelink 400 X though. The connectors they use for RCA are obnoxiously hard to get onto female RCA connectors like on your TV and such. They should move to a better connector type such as that used by Canare which slides on and off nice and easy while still nicely gripping the female connector.

I actually had to use a small screwdriver to open up the "fingers" of the Gamelink 400 X connectors so they would slide on a bit easier.

Be careful when doing this, however, as you don't want to make them too loose, but it's necessary for most users. As tight as the connectors are originally, you can actually take off the outer part of the female RCA connector.

Anyhow, if you are new to the world of the XBox classic or just got an HDTV  and want to connect the XBox to it, it looks like the Monster Gamelink 400 X is pretty much the best way to go. Just remember to loosen up the gripping "fingers" on the RCA connectors just a bit though otherwise you'll have problems getting the connectors on and off the female jacks on your TV or AV receiver/preamp.