Considering Int. Amp w/ limited features NEED HELP

Soulgoober, as I said in an earlier post ... I know exactly where you are since I was at the same place about a year ago. My research started with AudioReview.com and then migrated over here to A-gon. So many choices, and constantly finding out about something new; wanting to make just the right decision without going through the time, expense, and hassle of returning merchandise. I ordered (and returned)Axiom speaker. I installed and later gave away (to my daughter who moved to school) a pair of Ascend Acoustic speakers. I've tweaked, changed, and re-arranged my whole set-up. There have been countless hours spent trying to understand the numbers behind amplifier ratings and specs. What I can tell you is this: at some point one has to take the plunge and listen for oneself. Reviews can only tell us so much. Also, by constantly looking (or listening as it were) for something better, we confine ourselves to terminal upgrade-itis. It's never quite right, and there's always something better.

Here's the experience of a fellow A-goner:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?vbudg&1192817636&read&3&4&

If you believe the numbers ... power rating, Signal-to-Noise ratio, etc ... the Outlaw series compare very favorably to gear costing many times more. This is the reason I chose the 200 WPC Outlaw M2200 mono-blocks. I've listened to amps in the $20K range and - though not directly an A/B comparison - the improvement is so slight/subtle as compared to the Outlaws. In fact, a close personal acquaintance was by last night. He's an accomplished pianist and owner of a higher quality Yamaha Grand. We were listening to a piano solo; and his compliment to me was how realistically my system reproduced the right tone and timbre for the piece.

If you get the Outlaw Integrated, pair it up with a TRL modified CD changer, use some decent aftermarket power cords and I/C's (Signal Cable is good at modest prices ... though there are a couple of others - Element Cable and Speltz) ... this will give you a very nice system IMHO. Add a few tweaks and then enjoy the music!

Think about Cambridge Audio Integrated. Very well reviewed, very nice amps. Ample power. Audiophile sound for cheap. It has treble and base knobs. Remote control. BTW you can add a subwoofer by just using the pre-outs (L/R stereo) that most any integrated or preamp has. You just use the sub's crossover. This is a different approach than the one suggested above using speaker level inputs on the sub.

A few specs do tell how well a piece of equipment performs. Not necessarily how it will sound. (Tuner specs revel alot and I have found that distortion figures are noticeable for many pieces of equipment.) Just for curiousity (and to support my local dealer), I bougt a Cambridge Audio 540 V2 int. amp. Let me say it is a vey nice sounding int. amp! Very well built. It looks and feels like a more expensive piece. For the $ new I good buy. More than enough power to drive any reasonably sensitive spk. I've owned tons of Int. amps over the yrs., nothing over say over $1700 new and currently I'm using and greatly enjoying an older Sansui that I bought for a song in my main system. (Lacks the deep bottom end drive but sound so sweet in the midrange and treble.) Go figure! How does it compare w/ the 540 V2? Each piece has its strengths and weeknesses. The Sansui has a very good phono stage and will drive my 600 ohm AKG headphones. The Cambridge lacks a phono stage and it will drive 32 ohm HP's w/no problem but you really have to crack the volume up on the AKG's. No guarantees. Lots of trial and error. Good Luck! Bill

Thanks Tobias for your Quinpu suggestion - I did some research and really like what I'm reading about it.

Strateahed - in terms of just taking the plunge, I'm mostly delaying because I'm still working on raising the funds to purchase anything, so I've got time to research. Besides that, it IS very important to me to buy something I'm truly happy with, especially since it's as difficult as it is to raise the funds. Not only do i not have any kind of decent audio store anywhere less than a 3+ hour drive from me (that still will have a limited selection compared to what's out there), i really don't want to be paying shipping costs to return items and deal with the hassle of that if i can avoid it.

In terms of falling into terminal upgrade-itis, i'm also trying to avoid this too. I've lived with the same sub-standard system i have now for over 10 years before feeling the great need to upgrade. I am patient, and I only want to upgrade slowly as it really makes financial and sonic sense to do so. If i get something that's a significant improvment over what I have, I'll be happy for quite awhile.

As for the suggestion of the M2200, I have to admit that I don't even know how mono-blocks work. I'm still consdiering the intergrated from Outlaw, but found out about the Dussun when researching it, and that reviewer said it sounded much better than the Outlaw RR2150 in an A/B comparison. The Qinpu sounds even better now in that it's got very positive reviews generally and more features I want. It's tough doing reseach on some of these lesser known Chinese brands - it would be nice to have 50 reviews on audioreview to go by, but even the Outlaw RR2150 only has two. It really takes a good couple hours to research each model that's suggested to me.

I don't know what to say man, it's difficult and I'm doing my best - everyone's got a different opinion, and I want to carefully consider all of them before making the best decision for myself.

Cambridge Audio is kind of where I started and was the purchase I first intended to make, but somewhere in my research it seemed like I could do better. I know it might sound silly to some, but I want to spend $500-$700 each on a an integrated amp and cd player and get pieces that are worth far more - I can only get that by finding the best deal out there on the most highly reviewed pieces of equipment. It's a daunting task for a newbie. I really don't want to have to through this process over and over for awhile after I finally make a purchase...