Initial notes. I'll be continuing to take notes, and will post a full review, but wanted to get my initial impressions down.

Received the 1070 today (Saturday), and am assuming that the Outlaws arranged for Saturday delivery (probably at no additional shipping cost). That was a very nice touch, and much appreciated.

The box came with a sticker, "Opened for QC Inspections," and I was pleased to see that. However, after set-up, I had problems that I was able to resolve by simply pressing the Master Power switch again. More on this perhaps in a later review.

Remote does not power the unit on. I press the various options, TNR, AMP, etc., but it won't turn on the receiver. Otherwise, the remote works okay.

Had a drop out occur while playing a DVD-A. Disappointed by that. I'll be watching it closer.

The lag during Auto Polling seems a little long. When a DVD switches from the Menu to the Main Film, there is a significant pause after the film studio logo comes on. This is kind of frustrating.

Sound quality -- This is FAR superior to my HK 7000, hands down. Further, sound problems I had with the HK disappeared here. e.g., I had a bad problem with sibilance in my center speaker that has, as if by magic, disappeared.

Was a little disappointed to see it is made in Malaysia -- I'm a little nervous, because the HK was built in China, and it didn't last as long as I had hoped. However, just looking at the 1070, you can tell it is built like a tank. It is heavy and, looking through the grill, you can see how well built it is. The transformer is almost as big as the transformer in my HK7000 -- and the HK7000 cost about $1,700! I know of no other receiver at this price point that offers a toroidal transformer. Amazing.

Girlfriend, an artist, is pleased by the design. She made a few comments about, e.g., the rounded edges. It is a complimentary piece of furniture, not an eyesore gadget. Frankly, I love that it compliments my NAD 6155 tape deck. It would have been perfect, if it had the green button!

Congrats on the new receiver, jghim!
The 1070 has discrete on and off commands. The "power" button is a discrete off. All input commands (CD, DVD, Video1 through Video4, Aux, Tape, and I think AM/FM) serve to both turn the unit on if it isn't already on and to change the 1070 to that input. It's a feature added with the 950 in response to numerous requests from 1050 owners.
What was the behavior of the drop-out? Did it simply stop outputting audio at all, or was there just a hiccup? Keep an eye on it, and I'd also be curious to know how you have the bass management switch on the rear panel set.
Make sure that you've turned "auto poll" off for the DVD input. This is a feature that can be very useful with sources that sometimes output nothing from the digital connection (certain digital cable boxes, such as Scientific Atlanta Explorer 2000's) because the receiver will also try the analog input if the digital doesn't seem to be ready yet. For sources like DVD, however, where the digital output can sometimes go inactive long enough trigger auto polling, however, it can be a pain. Fortunately you can disable this feature for any input by changing that input's "auto poll" setting to off.

Outlaw has been working with Eastech, the company that builds the 1070 in Malaysia, for something like seven years now (possibly closer to ten, when you factor in development time for the Model 1050). The Model 1050, 950, 1070, and 970 all were or are manufactured there. Reliability is been good - there are still 1050's up and running in many systems. In fact, one of the 1050 beta testers (psklenar) still uses his 1050 in a second system. I wouldn't worry too much.
I've also been pleased with the new style introduced with the 1070 and 990. Everyone's tastes vary, and some people have long criticized Outlaw's designs from an aesthetic standpoint, but the folks that have seen my 990 have never had a bad thing to say about it (and I have a co-worker who still lusts after the Model 1050 that I loaned him for two months back in 2002). I was never offended by the green power button that my 1050, 750, and 950 had, but Outlaw took a lot of heat before finally revamping their design concept for the 1070.

Anyway, congrats on the new toy and let us know how it goes!

Did your 1070 come with the latest firmware installed?

It's a good question - the new firmware announcement indicated that all 1070's and 970's shipped in the last few weeks had the new firmware installed, and the "opened for QC inspection" would suggest that this unit came out of the box at least briefly (long enough to hook up to a PC and load the update).

I forgot to check the firmware update; will do so after work. I'm having some problems with the video section, so perhaps it is not the latest firmware. I may have to do an update.

Otherwise, this is an incredible sounding receiver. I still can't believe how much of a step-up in quality it is compared to my Harman. I didn't think it would be possible, but there is a significant difference in implementation of Dolby, etc. Outlaw's is better than Harman's. And DPLII is better than the 5 channel Logic 7, no question.

Thanks for the comments, Gonk!

It may have been a hiccup, as it was at the beginning of the DVD, first track of the Crowded House's debut album on DVD-A. Since then, I have experienced occasional drop outs while watching TV. I've been watching it closely, and it seems to have settled down.

I don't have a sub woofer at the moment, but plan to upgrade with the LFM-1 in the near future.

If it's a hiccup with DVD-A and it continues to occur, I'd look closely at the player and associated cabling - the 1070 sees that as just an analog signal so it's not doing much with it (just volume control typically, plus some analog bass management if the rear panel switch is in "HPF/LPF" position), but I had similar problems with a number of DVD-A discs while beta testing the OPPO 981HD and ended up finding that the problem was somehow related to my cabling (which still confuses me since SACD and regular CD/DVD output as analog from the player all worked fine, but oh well...).

If you have brief pauses in audio while watching TV, keep an eye on the front panel display to see if the signal format flashes up briefly in place of the processing mode. Particularly with HDTV, stations will change the format of the audio between broadcast and ads - ads often being Dolby 2.0, while broadcasts are sometimes Dolby 5.1. When that happens, the receiver has to re-acquire the signal and start decoding it properly - and during that re-acquisition, it mutes the audio so you don't get any mis-decoded noise.

Wow, I am using the 981HD for DVD-A (as well as DVD-V, SACD, etc.)! Perhaps Oppo has not ironed out the issues? I didn't know that this was a cable problem. Can you let me know what you did?

OPPO could not reproduce the problem even when I loaned them some discs and swapped hardware with them, but I changed my cabling to some Blue Jeans component video cables (done because I'd already taken one set out of service since the 981HD lacks a component output and because I needed more length, as the PCA's that I'd been using successfully for over three years were 0.5-meter long and hard to connect onto the 981HD's rather crowded rear panel) and haven't had a single problem since. Believe me, it was a most confusing deal. Still makes me scratch my head, actually...