I was at the bookstore during lunch today, browsing through Widescreen Reviews' "Coming to Retailer near you" section. They mentioned the upcoming pre/pro from Atlantic Technology and Outlaw. The funny thing was that Widescreen made it sound like the 950 was a knockoff of the P-2000! Any guess on who advertises more with them. Boy, I get more synical with every passing year.

I do have to give them a little credit. They did say that the 950's feature set for under $1,000 was a bargain.

That does not surprise me, but Perry Sun and Gary Reber were at the Outlaw press conference and saw and heard exactly the same stuff I did.

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Nigel Pond
SMR Home Theatre
SMR Forums
SMR Group
HighFidelityReview

Gary Reber getting facts wrong? Is that even possible?

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Sanjay

Great example of “spin”.
Prior clone’s threads, questioned how you convince people to pay twice as much for the product with a different faceplate, if feature’s set does remain static.
This is how. :R

Here's the link, for interested parties:
http://www.widescreenreview.com/attractions/retailer1299.html

I agree Smart Little Lena. I just wonder if any of the future publications (the reviewers will probably want to but will be overuled by marketing/legal) will have the guts to say:

All things being equal, and they are between the 950 and the P-2000, we see no Spec or Sonic advantage of paying an additional $900 for the P-2000 over the Outlaw 950.

Wouldn't that be the day.

Doesn't that just tick you off? Give credit where credit is due!

Yea, that is pretty annoying. I wonder how many people will read that and think the Outlaws are really bandits? Hope they take the time to check out the site and learn the truth!

That's if the magazine reviewers actually realize that the 950 and the P-2000 are one and the same.

Just one example: a few months ago, famous high-end audio reviewer Robert Harley rated various surround processors for The Perfect Vision magazine. He gave the Classe SSP-75 a rating of Class 1 (best) and the Parasound AVC-2500U a rating of Class 3 (pretty near the bottom). I don't know how he could have arrived at those ratings since both those processors were based on the same unit. Could the few cosmetic changes that Classe added make the processor sound that different from its Parasound brother? Yet another case of "listening to the faceplate".

Of course, now watch this happen again with the Outlaw and its various clones. Amazing how much different something can sound if it is simply priced higher.

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Sanjay

How true. Almost always will be reviewed as sounding much better versus the low priced spread! You don't have to look very far to find many examples of where the "law of diminishing returns" comes into play in this industry. IMO of course.

Underscores the importance of double-blind tests, as well as taking magazine reviews with a grain of salt.

Maybe Widescreen is listening their eyes instead of his ears? ;-)

Eric