Hi, Robert.


Sorry, though, I haven't seen any new word yet. Newsletters tend to land around trade shows and holidays, though, so if I had to guess when we next hear something official it'll most likely be between December 24 and January 3. If they wait until after that window, they're most likely aiming for an internal milestone of some sort.

(The above dates are wholly supposition on my part and may bear no resemblance to reality. Your mileage may vary, so on and so forth...)

As far as I know, any delay in releasing the 1070 for order or preorder would be that Outlaw has a very high regard for releasing a quality product. Outlaw still has remnants of the early 950 'hiss' issue brought up now and then. Outlaw is likely being very careful to test every aspect of the early production models to make sure that the manufactured product will perform as well as their design engineers intend. I'm sure that Outlaw wants to be very, very confident in the 1070 before any shipments of this product begin.

Believe me, I totally understand why they are waiting to give us information (and a release date)! But, that doesn't help the pain. In the past (3) weeks, I've had (2) new Yamaha receivers, (2) H/Ks, and (1) new Pioneer at my house... The stores are hating me right now. But, I'm tring to soothe myself until the Outlaws take care of it ;-)

-robert

Personally, I think the Outlaws are a bit slow on the draw. 4years is a long time in-between models, too long in the world of consumer electronics. And with the projected 900-1,000$ price tag, that would be almost twice the price tag of the previous model(1050). I am going by the afore mentioned 'to be under $1,000.' in a previous newsletter.

Four years is a long time by the standards of industry giants like Yamaha, Panasonic, Pioneer, or Denon since they typically operate on a "model year" structure, but for smaller companies like Outlaw, Rotel, Sherwood, etc., it is not particularly unusual. In many cases, large manufacturers take an existing design and tweak it a bit to create a new model for a new model year, with major changes occuring only every three or four years. Smaller companies more often keep an existing design on the market for several years, saving them production retooling costs (it also makes their buyers feel less "behind the times" when their model is replaced after ten months by a model with one new feature). The development time and money involved in this stuff is significant, all the moreso for smaller designers.

The price tag, which I suspect will land just shy of $1000 (although I suppose they might surprise us and come in around $900), is about 40% more than the Model 1050's original price of $599 - the 1050 price was dropped to $499 after it had been on the market for about a year, similar the price drop on the 950 after a year. Considering some of the differences in the two products, I think that price difference is not surprising - the 1070 will sport component switching with video upconversion (the 1050 had no component switching at all), 65W of power for seven channels with all seven driven at once (the 1050 had 65Wx6, with up to three driven to 65W at once), and DVI switching, to name a few differences.

I agree with Gonk on the differences of the business models. However, the Outlaws are not reinventing the wheel here. Every feature previously mentioned for the 1070 is currently available, and DVI is old technology. HDMI is shipping on practically every video source and display. I can wait, as I plan to use the 1070 as
a Pre/Pro, I only wish it would have Main In jacks to complement the Pre Outs

I'm buying the 1070 based on my experiences w/ the 1050 & their reputation, mainly. What I wonder is this... What are the features that are really going to set this receiver apart from other receivers in the $750-1000 arena? DVI switching only? This doesn't seem like a large selling point to me as HDMI is THE standard that will be around for a while. I believe we'll see sub 1k receivers w/ HDMI switching by next Christmas - nobody will want something that only does DVI then... If DVI switching is not THE reason to buy this unit - what is? I guess what I'm getting at is this... What sets this unit apart from receivers like the 3805, rx-v2500, hk630, etc.?

If it's like the 1050, one big factor will be sound quality - not something that shows up on a feature "laundry list," unfortunately, but one that matters nonetheless and one that kept the 1050 popular for a number of years. Another factor will be customer support and service. Will there be any others? We won't know until we see a final feature list. Even then, we won't really know what the real "key benefits" are until we start hearing from people who actually have 1070's in place and running.

I'm still amazed that people forget this. More features does not automatically mean better sound quality. Outlaw is not reinventing the wheel, but they are creating their own design of it. You don't just slap components together like they're Legos and call it a day.

[/qb][/QUOTE]I'm still amazed that people forget this. More features does not automatically mean better sound quality. Outlaw is not reinventing the wheel, but they are creating their own design of it. You don't just slap components together like they're Legos and call it a day. [/QB][/QUOTE]

I'm still amazed that people forget this. More features does not automatically mean poorer sound quality