Regarding the Sherwood p965, the back panel photo on Sherwood's site says "designed in USA" and "assembled in Korea". Lots of info on the site:

http://www.sherwoodusa.com/prod_p965.html

Mark

I have the Sherwood P-965 and it really is an incredible sounding pre/pro. If the Outlaw 990 sounds anywhere near as good with all the little bells and whistles they will have a definite winner for $1099.00. I paid $1050.00 street price new for my Sherwood so Outlaw is certainly in line price wise.

I guess it is manufactured in good old Korea? I have to look at my book...

You got a good price on your Sherwood, wingnut - the list price is $1500.

The concensus online certainly has been that the P-965 is an excellent sounding piece of gear. Makes me very curious to hear the 990.

RE: USB output

My old Microsoft sound system outputs from the PC via USB to the MS base unit (which includes the amplification, subwoofer and D/A converter.

The digital audio streams directly out of the computer's USB port and doesn't involve the soundcard at all, although there are soundcards with USB output.

There is a USB audio support driver in Windows, so I would assume that when you connected the USB ports between the 990 and your PC that the device would be recognized. Then you'd just have to be sure that your audio output was being routed to the USB port instead of to a soundcard.

ADDITION TO ORIGINAL POST:

My question is whether the 990 will act as a client to the PC/MAC and you'll be able to browse audio files from the 990, itself, or if you'll have to queue up a playlist of files on the PC (with WMP or some other media player) and stream them out to the 990.

I suspect that the client model won't be implemented -- too much additional "stuff" needed to make that work. The 990 will probably treat the computer as another input device and you'll have to control all playback from the computer. Still a nice feature.

We'll have all these answers soon, I suppose.

Man o man, go away for a couple of days and look what happens. It's taken me a while to read through this one. And apart from a "to balance or not to balance" detour this is all good news.

The question I'm asking myself though is what I'd actually gain based on my present system heart (950/770) by jumping on the 990 wagon. I mean beyond the wild adrenalin pumping, can I get this one past my wife, I want this because I haven't upgraded all winter sort of thing.

For me I guess the biggest draw is the phono stage since I'm looking for a way to get back my analog/vinyl habit that I left long ago. That's one of my reasons for interest in the RR2150 (still waiting. I have lost interest in pursuing balanced connections as I'm not convinced of their advantage. And the DVI switching is all in a wait and see what happens mode due to the inevitable format war that is coming regarding the next step in video.
Also I wonder what the value will actually pan out to be for all these "previously owned" 950's. With all this excitiment it could tip the old supply and demand scale don't you think. Ahh who knows.
It's all good news regardless. Outlaw is keepin right in there. It fun to be a part of it in some way.

Good point. I think that is in the ballpark for the street price of Sherwood (give or take) although the list price is of course, more.

Well hey guys,..
been a long time. I was looking through my mail after being out for a few days and saw one from Outlaw. I haven't been active on the forum for quite some time, but always read the mail when I get one, and check in every now and then,....This one has me reading the whole thread on the new 990.

I'm sure others are curious also, as I have seen two other inquiries in the thread,.....Any idea when and where the internal component list will be available? DAC's, Processing engines,Power supplies,..and so on,....???

What has bee released so far sounds great. A few more details will get us all a lot closer to knowing what to expect from this beast,...

>>>--->

I'm guessing the next newsletter will add some more details - the original newsletter indicates that there will be more information this coming week. Looking forward to more info...

I dare say that if the 990 does not have room EQ, digital support for video, balanced outs etc…, the unit will not be viable for very long. Sherwood is very close to releasing a newer version of the p–965 with all these features as well as an upgraded discrete 2 channel audio section. While supposedly maintaining the current price point on the p-965. There are many other pre-pro manufactures following suit as well.

It does have balanced outs. One thing the 990 doesn't have that I bet the new Sherwood does, is i.Link. Sherwood just released/announced 2 new universal players, and the more expesnive one has i.Link.

http://www.sherwoodusa.com/nc_cat_dvdp.html