Check out the following link:
http://www.avrev.com/equip/top_100_of_2005/

They mention an Outlaw 970 ( which they rank
above the Denon 4806! ) in the top 100 products
of 2005...

Is there a new pre/pro around the corner?

P.S. I posted this here since there is no
970 forum...

This certainly is a hot topic this weekend. Tonygeno seems to have originally spotted it and posted in an AVS thread. The most likely scenario is that they're pulling the amps out of the 1070, which would give them about the only price competitor on the market for AV123's LMC-1. Of course, it's all just speculation at the moment...

Gonk it is funny you should mention the LMC-1 because I was going to post and ask if anyone had read or heard much about this "soon" to be released product. AT $699 alone or
$998 for the combo with their 125 wattx6 amp this would almost seem to good to be true. The other Emotive amp the MPS-1 I believe it is,has gotten some very good reviews. It will be intresting to see if AV-123s budget combo has the goods sound wise.

I've been watching the beta for the last five or six weeks. The LMC-1 processor has hit some snags during beta testing - fixes are reported to be in the works, but time will tell how well they work out. The amp may prove to be more appealing to some than the processor (built overseas, which is probably why it is listed for only $600 for 125Wx6) but it appears to be pretty far removed from the $2000 MPS-1. The processor has a very minimal feature set for a modern processor (the old 950 had more robust bass management and a better remote, for example).

I did notice the lack of variable crossover points but other than that the feature set seemed to me like it would meet the needs for most who would be looking in the under$1000 price range. That being said though the lack of crossover points sure could make it hard to optimize its performance with a large variety of speakers.

It will be interesting to see what the LMC-1 ends up being. It is well over a year late, and as Gonk mentions, still being sorted out. One would have thought it would be ready, but they seem to have had problems with the video and the menu system.

You have to believe it will sound good, but based on the information that is available, it is terribly under-featured for the price: no lip-sync delay, little or no bass management, no software upgradeability, fewer input/output choices than most receivers, and it appears to be based on the older, CS 49326 DSP chip. (Though, in fairness, no one has officially confirmed if the DSP is the '326 or a '400.)

The other thing I've always found peculiar is the choice of a 6x125 configuration for the UL amp. It's also configurable to 5x125 + 2x50. Fine, and undoubtedly a great amp, but given the general feeling these days that "equal power across all channels" is the way to go, it's an odd animal when used in 7.1 systems.

I thought it was pretty well determined that the DSP was the 49326 and that there was no way to step up to the 49400 - that was the reason that internal lipsync adjustment had been ruled out, and it explains some of the other features that are so reminscient of the Model 950 (a 49326-based unit with similar speaker distance adjustment options as the LMC-1).

The whole concept behind the LMC-1 is sort of an extreme version of the 950's concept four years ago: uber-affordable with good sound quality a priority over features. It must hit the sound quality nail on the head - the feature set is going to be a marketing challenge (bass management is not even as sophisticated as Outlaw's Model 1050 receiver was back in 2000, and in some ways a used 950 would give you more capabilities).

I am still not sure other than the bass managment what the LMC-1 is missing that I would like to see it have. I find the inputs to be more then I would ever use and the hdmi and dvi thing is a non factor for me because my tv has two hdmi three component and two RGB hookups. I have to run everything to my tv because the wife hates to have to turn on the receiver to watch tv. Other than the bass managment the features seem to me to match up to alot of the Adcom,Rotel and the likes preamps that still sell for over a $1000.

THe problem for me with the LMC-1 isn't what it has, but what it doesn't have, and it's more than no bass management (though if you don't have speakers that match, that's a potential problem all by itself.

In addition to the lack of bass management, I am in the same boat as probably many others in needed some way to delay to audio for sync to picture. Between digital cable, TiVo and delay caused internally in my HD set by scaling, I get quite a bit delay. Unfortunately, it varies from source to source. That is where the need for lip-sync delay comes in handy. Outlaw has it in the 990 and 1070; the LMC-1 doesn't.

I also am troubled by the lack of ability to upgrade the software. The 950 didn't have that and it was a pain to replace the chips. I guess the Outlaws saw the light and added an RS-232 port to both the 990 and 1070. The LMC-1 doesn't have that either.

At the end of the day it's a toss-up, as I suspect they will both sound good, but the extra features of the Outlaw stuff tip the scales for me. I wonder if there is a 970, and what it will have.

Until the LMC-1 is finished and a manual made available, it's hard to say for sure. It has some valuable features - PLIIx processing, transcoding of video from s-video/ composite to component (assuming the video switching gets fixed), second zone with a little 25Wx2 amp - but curiously it has some of the same design omissions that the 950 caught a great deal of grief for back in early 2002 (no software upgrade support/RS-232 and no discrete speaker distance settings) as well as the lack of bass management and some question as to how/if stereo analog bypass is included. Does that mean that it's not worthy of consideration? Nope - but if a unit based on the 1070 (which is what started this discussion a few posts back) that were priced several hundred dollars under a grand would add some interesting spice to the (currently non-existent) +/-$500 new SSP market that the LMC-1 would otherwise have to itself once it comes to market.