Integrated Amp Reviews

I was still meditating on the subject of woofer control when my aging but unusually sturdy Russian neighbor knocked at my door. Vladimir, who speaks very little English, was clutching a Ball jar of home-distilled vodka and a sack of ribs he'd smoked. He wanted to show me the new axe he'd forged. I was down with that.

As I studied the axe, I let Vladimir slip under the hypnotic spell of Puente Celeste. For a long time he rocked his head, chewed ribs, listened, didn't speak. Then he pointed at my system, smiled broadly, and raised both thumbs. I drew sketches of the Outlaw and the Stirling speakers, and next to them jotted down their prices. He looked shocked. "Too many babki!" he said loudly. I shook my head. "No—not enough!"

The last contents of the Ball jar were disappearing behind Vladimir's collar when I pointed to a pile of CDs. "What should I play?"

He slammed down the jar. "'Straight, No Chaser.'"

I laughed. That track was easy to find. I'd recently bought the Thelonious Monk Quartet's The Complete Columbia Studio Albums Collection (6 CDs, Columbia/Legacy 88697957682 1-6). By the time we hit "Japanese Folk Song (Kojo No Tsuki)," the Russian was snapping his fingers, and I was feeling very drunk on tenor sax and piano. The sound through the LS3/5a V2s was fast and realistically toned. Monk's piano notes were slightly soft, but strong and artfully expressive. All his swinging grooves were available for our delectation, and Vladimir looked unusually happy. The harmonics of plucked double bass notes were something to enjoy, and Larry Gales's playing was easy to follow. Charlie Rouse's sax was delivered with a stirring dose of blatty-tenor textured presence. By the time we got to "We See," Vladimir had morphed into drummer Ben Riley. And by "Green Chimneys," I was making mental notes of the RR2160's profoundly good way with rhythm and momentum. Monk's music was as tasty as Vladimir's smoked ribs.

I can't remember how many times I've told people that flamenco guitar records are mostly boring showpieces devoid of soul, earth, and bodily fluids. Then one day, at Tower Records, I picked up a couple of $1 LPs by Carlos Montoya and fell in love with his hugely popular and expressive exultations. Those records are long gone, but recently I discovered a fun little soft-core version of Tao Ruspoli's Flamenco, on Pierre Sprey's notorious label (CD, Wild Child/Mapleshade 10452). Ruspoli's playing is interesting and enjoyable, but still lacking in Romany lust and primitive fire. The fun with this record is Mapleshade's extraordinary audiophile sound, resulting from Sprey's placements of his PZM microphones, which are perfect: not too close and annoying, not too distant and boring. The Outlaw receiver and my KEF LS50 speakers made Ruspoli's guitar sound surprisingly real and tactile. Lower-priced amplifiers seldom generate this level of body and texture. Vladimir was impressed. So was I.

An Outlaw DAC
The Outlaw RR2160 uses a Burr-Brown PCM1792a 24-bit/192kHz DAC chip with NE5532 dual op-amp filters. I was curious to hear how that combo would compare with my reference DACs.

I connected my Integra DPS-7.2 DVD-A/CD player to the RR2160's coaxial input, and for an entire day, CDs sounded smaller, thinner, weaker, more canned and mechanical. It was annoying, depressing. My reviewer's ego lamented: Why me, Lord? The second day was a bit better, but nowhere near the sound of my Schiit Yggdrasil or Mytek Manhattan II DAC.

But on the third day the Outlaw RR2160's DAC rose up to sing, with quivering reverberant believability, the 10th song Elvis Presley ever recorded: a cover of a 1948 hit by Lonnie Johnson, "Tomorrow Night," included on Elvis's A Boy from Tupelo: The Complete 1953–1955 Recordings (3 CDs, RCA/Legacy 88985417732). This track was mastered directly from Sun Records' 30ips (!) "reference tapes." I was now using the Magnepan .7 speakers, and everything felt BIG and lush and extremely direct. These are Elvis's very first recordings, and I'd never heard the King sound this humble, tender, or vulnerable. I felt I was finally experiencing the real Elvis. I've been playing "Tomorrow Night," track 10 of disc 1 of A Boy from Tupelo, 10 times a day for three days. The loping double bass, the mournful background of barely touched pedal steel, and a perfect mist of spring reverb make "Tomorrow Night" a sublime example of Presley's heavenly singing and producer Sam Phillips's crystalline recording. Through the Maggie .7s stimulated by the Outlaw RR2160 and its onboard DAC, A Boy from Tupelo surprised me with its unfettered verity. Consider this a very recommendable combination.

An Outlaw Phono Stage
To evaluate the RR2160's MM phono section, I used an EMT TSD 75 MC cartridge with an Auditorium 23 step-up transformer. I've been rolling with the sound of that combo for months now—I know it well, and felt it would give me a good measure of the character of the Outlaw's MM phono stage.

The RR2160's phono stage gave me pleasure with a variety of LPs, but the one that left me wide-eyed and stuttering was the Electric Recording Co.'s reissue of Music for Viola and Cello, recorded in 1963 by 53-year-old violist Herbert Downes and 17-year-old cellist Jacqueline du Pré (LP, HMV CSD 1499/ERC 028). This fascinating recording represents one of the supreme combinations of high-quality recorded sound and inspired music making. An audiophile friend brought over a copy of this very expensive (ú500), limited-edition (300 copies) LP to hear how it would sound on my system. After I apologized for the budget nature of the Outlaw RR2160 and KEF LS50s, I turned out the lights and lit candles. We listened in silence to both sides. I have no adjectives to describe the experience, but if ever in your life your system plays this level of music making at this level of sophistication and naturalness of sound, the gods have blessed you. Aural images were drawn on soundstages with surprising precision. The high frequencies were sweet and unobtrusive. Bass, without Speaker EQ was full and taut, never pondering or hesitant. The midrange was lucid. Transients were slightly rounded—but only compared to the Parasound Halo JC 3+ ($2995) and Tavish Design Adagio ($1490) phono stages.

When I ran the EMT MC cartridge straight into the RR2160's phono stage set to MC, which loads all MCs at 47k ohms, I fell back to earth. While rhythmically satisfying and spatially well described, the sound was considerably less supple and viscous than it was with the Auditorium 23 step-up transformer driving the Outlaw's phono input set to MM.

The taut richness of the RR2160's MM section suggests that it will be sonically compatible with a wide range of budget cartridges; but the inability to adjust the MC loading to anything other than 47k ohms could make finding a good match problematic.

An Outlaw Tuner
I've owned a lot of FM/AM tuners, including, most recently, a Kenwood KT-990D hooked up to a Magnum Dynalab ST-2 FM antenna. But one day a few years ago, the reception of FM in my bunker sucked so bad that I abandoned tuners for streaming. The Outlaw RR2160 reminded me just how cozy and human old-school radio can feel in my room. It was like reconnecting with an old friend. In a direct comparison of the Kenwood and Outlaw, using only the RR2160's supplied antennas, the Outlaw pulled in a lot more stations than my old Kenwood. With the Outlaw, my favorite stations—WBGO FM (88.3), WNYC FM (93.9), and WFAN AM (660)—came in stronger, cleaner, richer in tone.

An Outlaw Headphone amp
Like its DAC, tuner, and phono sections, the RR2160's headphone output far exceeded my expectations. First, it played the hardest-to-drive headphones in my collection, HiFiMan's Susvaras ($6000)—they have an impedance of 60 ohms and a sensitivity of 83dB/1mW)—with a youthful, red-cheeked tonality, moderate dynamics, and excellent detail. Best of all, I didn't have to turn the Outlaw's separate/dedicated headphone volume control all the way up to enjoy it. More impressive was how well the Outlaw worked with AudioQuest's NightOwl headphones ($699.99). It was such a fabulous, well-balanced, natural-sounding match that I kept wondering: Could the Outlaw's headphone output be even better than its loudspeaker outputs?

Clearly, the people at Outlaw have worked really hard to make all of the RR2160's sources sound equally enjoyable.

Negatives
The only things that audibly hinted at the Outlaw's modest price were an ever-present softness of transients, some imaging vagaries, and occasionally, with its own DAC or phono stage, a momentary flash of unnatural brightness. But as I type these words, I'm listening to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Party's Back to Qawwali (CD, Long Distance 122083), and my musical pleasure meter is pegged all the way into the red.

Vive la revolution!
Outlaw Audio's RR2160 receiver was a joy to use. With every source and output transducer I tried, it reproduced trumpets and kazoos, guitars and pianos, saxophones and harmonicas, Scotty Moore and Miles Davis, Elvis and Thelonious, with accurate tone, taut bass, scrumptious detail, and satisfying dynamics. Outlaw's Retro Receiver is a conspicuously good-sounding audiophile product at a ridiculously low price. Highly recommended.