Didn't the joint agreement with Sherwood Newcastle exclude Outlaw from selling a receiver, or was that just a receiver based on the 997?

That exclusion was for the 997/R-972. It didn't exclude Outlaw ever doing a receiver in partnership with Sherwood. And of course it didn't exclude Outlaw building a receiver in partnership with someone else (like Eastech).

What secrets do you know, Gonk?

I wish I knew. I just remember there being something in the October announcement about Outlaw doing the 997 as a processor variant of the R-972 that indicated Sherwood wouldn't have a processor and Outlaw wouldn't have a receiver. That was as far as the distinction went, though.

Clearly I'm not the only one who's getting a little tired of waiting. Not even a single picture or spec about what's coming out? The auto makers understandably keep their new lines hidden until they're ready because they don't want the new/hot features copied, but so far we haven't heard of anything "new" that the other manufacturers haven't already done. Room optimizer? Done. 4 HDMI inputs? Done. USB ports for MP3 playback and firmware upgrades? Done. OSD over HDMI, XM support, Multi-room? Done, done, and done.

Don't get me wrong, I do like the look of their products, and the reviews are nothing less than stellar at the price point they were offered at, but this is taking so long that I'm not so sure I want to be an Outlaw owner anymore. The opposite would be to have new versions released every 6 months, and that too would suck, but like everything else in life, everything in moderation is best. Can't they at least put out some details of what's coming out, if for nothing else, just to string me along for another few months??

There is no "perfect" solution. If they string you along now, then they get slammed for leading people on when they announce something without a precisely correct release date. Let's assume that they say "here's what to expect from the Model 1071" today, give us a feature list, and then add that it's going to be released in Q4 2009 (I just made that date up, by the way), if they miss that date they will have potential customers who have planned their purchases around that product mad at them. They will then have those mad customers complaining until the product arrives.

History tells us that keeping things quiet until you have product very close to release is least likely to create grief. That's been true for Outlaw and a number of other manufacturers.

I agree with you 100%. But Gonk, the 1070 was discontinued when? With all the "low-low prices" emails we're all getting, aren't you starting to get the feeling that we won't be able to buy the new products until all of the old product is gone?
Generally speaking, and that's across all products, you usually have a replacement when you retire a product, and old stock is sold quickly and cheaply, but it shouldn't take months and months to do that. If it does, they need to talk to the guy responsible for inventory levels. All this is doing is pissing of current/potential customers. Add the risk that if the new unit isn't absolutely amazing, the customer base will not be happy with it.

As soon as Outlaw can get HDMI v1.3 hardware in hand, they'll start selling it - and I think I can safely speak for them that they want that day to come sooner rather than later, existing inventory be damned. The prices we've seen on the 970 and 990 are probably largely the result of them are competing in a very bad economy with hardware that - while good quality stuff - lacks a widely desired feature (HDMI).

I still think that basing a new receiver on the 990 would be the right path to go. Unless there is a contractual problem, this could basically be an Outlaw version of the Sherwood receivers. While I know that I am over simplifying, about the only change needed to make this attractive to me would be to replace the DVI with HDMI.

Basing one on the 990? That's an old platform at this point. Basing one on the 997? That would directly compete with Sherwood's R-972, which I doubt Sherwood is going to be excited about.