Scott/Outlaws -- Thanks much for the news on the 990 successor, which many of us have been waiting for. Now how about a few hints at what we can look forward to?

Bob

That was quite an announcement, wasn't it? The price drop on the 990 is dramatic, too - $700 is a heck of a nice price, especially with the $200 discount on the successor factored in for folks who might be rather susceptible to upgradeitis.

I think the biggest news was the "FU" to Cirrus. Outlaw is not the only company to ditch their plans and switch to Dual TI DSPs.

The price is a bit hard to swallow though. I'm sure it's going to be one hell of a processor, but still.

And. I still have my 950 (paid $899 at the time if I remember right), I never saw a reason to upgrade to the 970 or 990, but apparently I don't get the $200 rebate.

Correct, the 950 doesn't get you in the running for the $200 discount...

I see the 950s are going for about $350 on Audiogon, which would help with a new pre/pro!

Ya, nothing for us dreaded 1070 owners either. With all we've went through, that's a pretty hard one to swallow.

As much as I'd like to upgrade to the 990's successor, even at $1,200 (with the discount) it's too pricey for me. I guess I will wait and see what the 970's successor is priced at and what it offers. Perhaps I'll be able to use the $200 rebate toward that.

The $200 discount was described as being good for the next generation of processors, not just the next generation of the 990, so whatever replaces the 970 (and I think it's almost guaranteed that there will be something for that niche at some point) would be eligible for it...

Gonk,
My bad for the misleading last sentence. I know that the $200 discount is applicable to any next generation processor....I may exercise the discount if the 970 replacement's price is affordable (to me) and the feature set justifies the upgrade.

No sweat - just wanted to make sure you knew what your options were.

Any thoughts as to what "we have given the new product the robust computing power required to include a revolutionary new technology" is referring to?

I am curious as to what revolutionary technology might be included.

If it IS revolutionary, then I would suspect Outlaw will keep tight lips on it. Loose lips sink ships, after all!

There have been a few good suggestions offered in another thread here at the saloon, mostly relating to room correction (similar to Audyssey). I also tossed out the idea that it might be something similar to Dolby Volume, which compensates for those annoyingly loud commercials (just one example of what it does).

You touched on one my wish list items. Just for the commercial "muting", Dolby volume (or equal) would be an excellent feature.It is really annoying when the commercials get louder than the program you are watching. Most of the time it is the cheesy/poorly produced local commercials. It may not be the case, but it often crosses my mind about damage to my speakers. What else does Dolby Volume do?

I assumed the new processor would have room correction. Are you suggesting an improved romm correction algorithm?

Dolby volume is interesting, I wonder how well it works?

I can't take credit for the idea - in this thread , klh suggested that they might be talking about Trinnov, a competitor of sorts to Audyssey that is planned for the Sherwood R-972.

The mention of Dolby volume really peaked my curiosity. I found this FAQ page on the Dolby web site, very interesting technology.

Dolby Volume

I hope it is included in the new 990.

Keep in mind it's all guesswork at this point. It could be Dolby Volume, it could be Trinnov, or it could be something else entirely...

Gonk, will you be updating your processor chart when the new Outlaw processor comes out? Lots of changes in technology since your last update. I used your spreadsheet as a baseline when I was looking to upgrade a while back. As a matter of fact, I have enjoyed the references you attached in your signature.

My charts have gotten badly out of date, as my new position at work and the three-year-old have taken more of my time. I'll probably try to start working through updates on at least a couple of them (maybe the HD disc player chart and the pre/pro chart) at some point. We'll see what I can do...

When do you guys think the new Pre-Pro will be released? Obviously this is just speculation. What about spec release... when do you think this will come out?

There's a good chance that they will not say a peep about it until the first production batch is on the water - that's how the 990 arrived, and they've kept the new unit similarly "under wraps" (aside from the obvious, which was that we all knew they were working on something to address the market demands for HDMI v1.3). As for when that freighter might leave dock, I would like to think it'll be some time between now and the end of the year. As for a really wild guess, I'll say Monday, October 27, 2008. Plus or minus 120 days...

We should start a "when will it be announced" pool for the 990 replacement.

I say December 7th, plus or minus 90 days.

Does anyone know if there will be units out for a beta test? Thinking a bit more, I suspect that is not a good question due to non-disclosure agreements.

My bet is that gonk gets the first one on December 2nd.

Odds are that Outlaw will (or possibly even is) have a beta test, although as you say it'll be done under an NDA so we won't get to hear about it...

Thanks guys. My guess is they'll try to have it out by Thanksgiving... gotta have it ready for the big shopping season .

I'm pretty sure that before the new processor is released to the public, beta testing will be done. Outlaw is going to make sure that beta testers put it through its paces before unleashing to the public. Scott, if your listening, I'm ready to run one through the paces in my H/T room, lol.

Yeah, hopefully there's some beta testing BEFORE the units are shipped to the first customers, unlike the 1070 owners who are still putting up with the bugginess of the units.

(Obviously I assume there was with the 1070 as well, but it didn't help much.)

I'm rather positive the revolutionary technology is the Trinnov tech. It blows away all other room eq software in sound quality.

Sherwood's Pre-Pro is going that route, and last I heard Outlaw was going with Etronics for their 990 replacement and again Sherwood would be releasing their own more expensive slight different version.

Sherwood will be officially announcing their Pre-Pro at CEDIA with plans of shipping the unit shortly after in October.

So I'm guessing the Outlaw will be a bit earlier.

That is if everything is Kosher. A lot of companies were waiting for Cirrus chips and decided to go another route.

I'm in the same boat as you, I really didn't see the need to upgrade my 950. Honestly it ticks me off and makes me feel pretty f'in unappreciated for my previous business. Emotiva is offering a FAR better deal to their pre/pro owners on their upcoming processors; kind of makes me wish I'd bought one of them in the mean time.

I was also in the same situation concerning upgrading my 950 to the 990. Prior to the release of the 990 owners of the 950 scoffed at the notion of other more expensive processors sounding better than the 950. Then the release of the 990 and many people raved about the better, upgraded, clearer sound compared to other units including the 950, I didn't buy it. I literally figured that if Soundhound continued to use the 950 in his post production sound business then that was good enough for me.
Well when the 950 died I considered both the 990 and Emotiva's MMC-1, given the MMC-1 was at the time a couple hundred $ less and they have the 40% future discount I got the Emotiva unit.
I don't think the MMC-1 sounds any better or worse than the 950, both sound good to me. To date the MMC-1 has had NO glitches or quirks, I wish that would have been the case with my 950.

I have a 15 year old samsung TV and I am still P.O.'d that they wouldn't let me trade it in on my new 60 inch DLP. C'mon guys you got good use out of those machines and its not like they don't work any more. When the 999 comes out a lot of people are going to pony up the full $1500 because it'll be worth it. The 990 owners who bought their machines even though we knew a new BETTER model was coming out deserve the kickback from Outlaw, just for loyalty. I for one may buy the new machine in the future and keep my 990 too. How many generations of pre-pro do we think we should reap the reward on. Did the 950 owners have the possibility to get a discount when the 970 came out?

My 950 doesn't work anymore which is what prompted the other purchase. As for loyalty I don't think there is any from any manufacturer....rebates, free shipping, kickbacks and discounts of any type are just sales and marketing to get you or keep you as a customer.....as it should be. My dog is loyal, companies aren't, neither are customers unless the price is right.
I also notice your Samsung lasted 15 years, much better than my $900 processor which only went 5 years. The 770 is going strong and I feel like it should be around for many, many years. The 950 was always slightly sketchy in it's operation but if it worked I would still be using it instead of moving to the 990.

From what I have read on the other machines from Outlaw, it seems that all of them have their quirks and have been in need of some "fixes" after the purchaser gets it home. Some of the issues seem to arise from customer expectations being so high and some are downright faults of the designers. It also seems that Outlaw goes the distance in trying to fix the issues. What gets me is that the customers seem to be used as beta testers. I for one tend to stick with my equipment because I don't want to learn a whole new control scheme every few years. I still have vintage Yamaha equipment from when it first came into Audio equipment almost 40 years ago. The equipment still works flawlessly but is all manually controlled. I have rebuilt a set of 4 Advent loudspeakers 3 different times because I really like them. I don't think anything as advanced as new audio equipment is can last more than several generations before it is beyond its useful life. These days the generation time is usually less than a year so whatever equipment we get today will be outdated in 3 years at most. My "new" 990 has DVI output but I haven't seen a TV with DVI input in more than a year. I bought "obsolete" equipment from Outlaw knowing in advance it would be dated in less than a year. The 5 year warranty keeps me from having to buy new in 2 years when all of the controls are different on all new machines and none fully integrate with the rest of my system.

I've also lamented the speed to obsolesence in the current audio market but it's easy to see why this is so from the impatience that folks have expressed with Outlaw for taking "so long" to release a replacement for the 990.
It's amazing that in a market where many cling to tubes and LPs, many are hell bent for the latest and greatest connections and digital processing, and in many cases it's the same people!
Mabey Outlaw should introduce a Super HD Turntable with a 7 channel tube preamp connected by a single wire, and of course a USB input and I-pod dock.

The thing is, audio technology was a mature technology in the 1950s. Except for delivery media, the sound quality obtainable hasn't changed one bit, and is arguably worse in some instances.

The only reason someone needs to change out a piece of gear is if it provides decoding of some newer movie delivery format or provides switching for a newer video format.

Or, as in my case, the gear stops working.

Yeah, well, it should still be working. Products which do not last up to or well past their warranty period show some very serious lack of proper design.

Keta,
How old is your 950? It can't be too far out of warranty can it? Maybe 3 years. I can't fathom what failed that Outlaw would not try to help you with.

I spent a good part of the last weekend setting up my old Technics turntable with my system so I could hear all the good old music from my LPs. I have about 600 of them and have held on to them for the last 20 years. Over the years I have resisted the urge to replace them with CDs mostly because of the cost. I used to have 2 reel to reels primarily because I could record a lot of music and play them for hours at a time wihout changing tapes or records. This weekend I realized what a fool I have been all these years. LPs have not gotten better with time but the hassles of using them are as bad as ever. Changing disks every 20-25 minutes to hear the other side is annoying, especially when the sound isn't any better than the CDs. Recording engineers back then certainly made the same mistakes with vinyl as they did with digital and it is harder to use.

As long as the Outlaw are at it they should build a new machine with 9.3 sound that uses a light sabre as a remote. It could include a set of metallic Hydrogen speaker wires and a 1000w amy powered by the sun. Of course we the could spend weeks complaining about the cost and that the FM tuner is still not very good.

Actually, premium pressings from companies like Classic Records have gotten far better than "the good old days". One primary reason for this is that the cutting engineer knows these pressings will be played on top quality equipment rather than the lowest-common-denominator stuff they used to assume was being used. As such, no compression, bass rolloff or other compromises are used. The pressings are also much quieter.

Well I was just out of warranty when the 950 stopped responding to remote commands. The unit had issues with remembering it's configuration setting which seemed to be in steady decline for many months prior to the remote issue. It was to the point that almost weekly the configuration settings would be lost and the unit would revert to factory settings. Now trying to reset all config settings with no remote is no small task. Outlaw was willing to look at the unit and estimate a repair cost. They indicated that the loss of settings was not uncommon with power dips and spikes. Anyway by this point I was not feeling up to dumping more money in a product that I felt was having reliability issues. Couple that with the fact I would be without my system for a few weeks and I decided to cut my losses and try something else. At some point I may send it in for repair but I'm not considering that at this point.

I have been reading in this forum that the successor to the 990 might have some type of "room correction". Does this mean that the SMS 1 velodyne bass system would no longer be needed?

It's hard to say anything definitively without having specs on what sort of room correction might be used. It's possible, absolutely - although I've also seen posts from a number of people using the SMS-1 in conjunction with Audyssey MultEQ room correction (allowing Audyssey to handle the speakers while leaving the sub for the SMS-1 to take care of).