http://www.audioholics.com/ces/CESprocessors/SherwoodR972.php

Just thought I put this out here.

Greg

Interesting find. It will be interesting to see if Outlaw sticks with the partnership they established with Etronics on the 990 for a next-gen HDMI processor. I also wonder if Audioholics got one thing backward: it lists "converts HDMI video to analog" where I'd expect to see "converts analog video to HDMI." I also noticed that there was no mention of when it would be available...

July/August timeframe - (http://www.avguide.com/news/2007/01/09/ces-07-sherwood-builds-dream-avr) but one word of caution - SN is notorious for being late to market. this - http://www.sherwoodusa.com/prod_sd871.html - finally came to the dealers in Sept 2006!!!!!

Yep - audioholics got that one description backward.

Fantastic feature set at that price - given that their current flagship - R-965 - cost $2,000. Wonder if it will have the SQ (very, very good) of the R-965.

July/August would fit with the earliest that we'd been guessing we might see any HDMI v1.3 product from companies other than the big guys (Sony and the like). I agree that slippage is highly likely. Your AV Guide offers some other good tidbits, including the scaler being used (Faroudja's Cortez chip, which I may have to do some reading up on - see if they resolved the tendency to accentuate macroblocking that the older Faroudja chip had).

Based on my experience and a fair evaluation, I would also add that Sherwood's customer relations are poor - in my case, I wanted to buy the A965, and they actually stonewalled me. I was in no way rude - just geographically distant from any of their authorized dealers. Similar buyers should beware. Anyway, the 7125 is working out great - thanks all for the recs (as well as the folks at Axiom).

Just a guess: maybe they mean that incoming HDMI video is downconverted to 480i for output through component, s-video and composite connections. I think HDCP allows for that. It would mean that users could take advantage of hi-rez audio over HDMI even if they didn't have a HDMI equipped display. Again, just guessing.

More and more, I suspect that July to August is an overly optimistic target for the R972: this Secrets report mentions that the final version will have six HDMI inputs instead of the four on the sample at CES. That means that they either took a pretty old hardware sample to Vegas or they are still working on hardware changes that affect board layout, rear panel plate layout, and silk screening. Even disregarding software development and testing, that would suggest a lot yet to be done before production can begin.

I just read that Axiom Audio will handle the Sherwood line exclusively online. This from the Axiom forum. Nothing on the Axiom site yet.

Now that's interesting - I wonder if the success of the 990 (based on the Sherwood 965 platform) tempted Sherwood into an online distribution channel?

From Axiom forum:

Does anyone know if this product has been released yet? As far as I can tell, there are no dealers in within 200 miles of where I live (SE Michigan).

I'm not sure I can wait for the Outlaw Model 997.

Sherwood Newcastle is saying that the R-972 will be released "some time" in April. The 997 is to follow by 60 days.

My understanding is that the R-972 has not launched yet. Latest word is that they are planning on releasing it next month.

There is suddenly some buzz in the avsforum about the Sherwood Newcastle R-972 receiver version of this platform being finally within sight.

See the thread, starting about here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=16551023#post16551023

Dave K.