I must say, the primary reason I waited for the 950 rather than going with the AVM-20 (which I thought, and still think, is a more flexible product) was the extra money. I simply didn't have the money for the AVM-20. Or the MC-12.

I was very lucky to get my 950 during the second set of shipments (after the first, infuriating stoppage because of the DD dropout bug). And, I've been happy with it. It's a great product.

But if I wasn't in that early group, and I was still waiting for the 950 now, going on 10 months after I first expected it, I must say that things would be different. Ten months is a lot of time to save up, and I now *do* have enough money to buy an AVM-20 if I'd wanted to.

Long and short of the matter; we are WAY long past the breaking point now, folks. I am personally *never* waiting for an Outlaw product again. From now on, I may wait for something from another company, but as far as Outlaw goes, I'm judging them strictly based on what they have shipping.

That means, that if I find myself in possesion of $2k or $3k in three or four years, and an itch for a new, higher-end pre/pro, and the Outlaws already have a big brother for the 950 shipping, I'll very seriously consider it. But if it comes down to spending $2k on the outlaw and waiting for it, or $4k on a competitor that happens to be shipping at the moment, you know what I think I'll choose. The only variable is whether or not $4k is in the bank; if it's there, I'll spend it.

I feel very burned by the whole 950 thing. It was a very stressful experience (yes nobody needs to tell me it's not a cure for cancer) and I won't put myself through it again for the sake of a few hundred bucks. If I could, right now, get those 6 or 8 or whatever it was months back, in exchange for the money I saved, I'd do it. Keep in mind people, I'd *sold* my previous stuff based on the Outlaws' promise.

Now, for it to be something like two months *past* the time when the 950 started shipping, and still no firm date on when the people on the wait list will be serviced, I'd be furious if I was still on that list.

I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm being overly harsh here. My mood is made all the worse by the fact that the 950 is, in actuality, a very good product. And, because I also really believe in the Outlaw's business model and what they 're trying to do.

The worst tragedy that could possibly come out of all this is for the Outlaw's to throw in the towel after the 950 and go back to simply making amps. There's a lot they can still do for the high-end pre/pro and receiver market, if they get their s**t together.

Maybe they tried to hit too low a price point on the 950. Maybe they were just naieve and made a lot of mistakes on the first production run. Maybe they cut corners they shouldn't have. Who knows? I just hope they take a good long, hard look at this situation and don't repeat it.

That doesn't, of course, mean shutting up about a product or potential product until it ships. If anything, they need even more communcation with the customer and need to keep their deadlines and promises, even if the progress they'd hoped to report hasn't been made yet. This late newsletter thing is just a joke.

They also should learn from the double bass thing on the 950. A feature that they put in, hoping for it to be useful, instead turned into a liability because there was no way to disable it. They NEED to talk to their customers and find out how they're going to be using these things, and that includes sending out proposed features lists before they're finalized, in order to get it right the next time.

Oh, and by the way, the "week of the 5th" ends at 5:00 PM when I leave work on Friday. The newsletter was 57 hours late. And woefully lacking in concrete information. And, DON'T say "by the week of the 5th" when you mean "by the 9th." You don't use the term "week of" to describe deadlines; deadlines are a hard, instantaneous point in time. They are NOT a date range.

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Matthew J. Hill
matt@idsi.net