We haven't been told the exact identity of either factory, true enough. (One could argue that you very rarely are told what specific factory builds your electronics, but that's sort of an indirect response.) The design is the same, of course, and if consumer electronics design has anything in common with construction (the area where I do my engineering) then Outlaw established specifications, scheduled specific parts to be used (possibly with named equals that could be substituted), and has the ability to oversee the manufacturing in order to see to it that the end product is at least equal.

The reason for the factory change was stated by Outlaw to be the original source's inability to keep up with demand. Beginning around last December, they've been constantly struggling to keep up with demand, especially after Stereophile's review - making it the only Outlaw product that I've ever seen have chronic supply problems. The logical assumption to be made is that they had assurances (backed up by some nice, hard numbers) to tell them that the new factory could keep up with the supply, otherwise they would have never taken the pretty drastic measure of relocating production after introducing the product to market.

I think garthr has summed things up very well: each listener is the best (some might say "only") judge of what is right for him or her, and no one piece of electronics is going to be right for everyone. That's part of what makes forums like this one so interesting, useful, and sometimes contentious: lots of different viewpoints, each based on a different perspective. Now that RR2150 shipments have begun again in significant numbers, this forum is beginning to see more and more of those different viewpoints, which is a great resource for both owners (comparing tips and ideas for making best use of the 2150, for example) and prospective owners (looking for first-hand feedback from multiple viewpoints).