Why would you see reviews before a release date? The reviews from sources like Home Theater or Sound and Vision will follow months after we have seen it ship to consumers. They have to have hardware before it can be reviewed. That's the way it always is - and has to be, unless you want them to design it, build it, stock it, and sit on it until a professional reviewer can use it, write a review on it, put it in the queue for publication, and it finally appear (which would take up to six or even nine months for a print review, and probably at least four months for an online review - if the reviewer made it their top priority, which they have no reason to).

My Model 950 and Model 990 reviews came pretty quickly after they launched (albeit not as quickly as my OPPO beta test reviews for obvious reasons), and I'm seriously considering a Model 997 purchase such that you might see a similar review from me shortly after launch. In fact, mine might even include a curious surprise (I'm not telling yet, and it's unrelated to anything Outlaw, but it's an idea that I think folks might like). The initial feedback is going to come from consumers - people who like the feature set, like the price point, and are willing to use the 30-day trial period to give it a try. Those consumers and forums like this one are the first source of useful feedback.

I think a January release is the earliest we might see something, but that's just me guessing - and I really suspect that it's likely late January or February. I could certainly be wrong, but Sherwood hasn't even got their R-972 in production yet and I have to think the Model 997 will need to follow behind it at least some.

Also, January sounds like it's a long way away, but I'm staring at a project that's in our office right now and due to go out in early January - and when I look at it, I feel like January is breathing down my neck!

Same here, January is just around the corner. New budget to prepare for, audit at the end of December, New Board coming in in February. Help I need more time!!!!

It would certainly be great to have it out for the holidays as it would make a nice gift. On the other hand, I want a fully functioning product rather than a half-baked product.

This has been a very interesting discussion and I accept (with some regret) Gonk's point that the omission of a phono preamp by the makers of the Sherwood-Outlaw platform may have been realistic recognition of the limits of available quality at this price point. But my October 29 message ended with a question: Will the 997 have biamp output capability, as I understand the forthcoming Sherwood receiver does? No one has addressed this. Since it would require an on-board line-level crossover with adjustable high- and low-pass filters and level settings, I imagine the answer is no. You could put in a pretty good phono preamp circuit for the same cost and it would probably appeal to more users.
But still it would be nice if someone told us. Hello?

There are a lot of interesting questions that I would enjoy seeing answers to - the question of biamp output capability included, although as you say I suspect that the answer is "no" (even if you could include the controls needed to implement active biamping, the potential for people to mis-use it is worrisome). Alas, Outlaw is likely keeping quiet until they can offer more complete answers. That leaves us with the fun of theorizing in a vacuum, which I happen to have been practicing quite a bit for a couple months now ...

On the balanced-outputs points, I would think it would cost a lot less to throw those in than to include a quality phono preamp. And I use one single balanced output today - for my subwoofer (AvFan's #2 case of a "powered speaker").

I would think a lot of folks use a balanced connection for the subwoofer (or should) - in my case I have a rather long noisy run (I guess that is both cases #1 and #2)...and so there is a HUGE reduction in noise for me in that case, enough for that alone to a purchasing factor for me, even if I am "paying" for the others but not using them : ).

Add in more circumstances like blaineh's noisy environment and add in some now ~legitimate marketing hype of bobliinds original point and I would think the business case and the rear-panel-real-estate case to include balanced outputs is very clear. ("now legitimate" because they are trying to sell product after all, and there are some battles you just don't fight)

Re rear-panel-real-estate, a TPA of the same size as a receiver should have plenty of room for balanced outputs in place of speaker outputs.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by gonk:
[QB] Composite video is a different issue than phono preamp. The phono preamp is a question of audio quality, while the composite video input is a question of compatibility and legacy support. There is no way you could connect a VCR or other video source (like my SMS-1) through a processor without a composite input - there's no outboard "transcoding box" that will make it component video. If you remove it entirely then you are telling your customers "I don't care if you want to hang on to that VCR, old game console, camcorder, Video iPod, or the SMS-1 that we sold you - you can't use it with our processor." That's a touch rude...

Thanks Gonk, you are truly the voice of reason, but I can't resist prodding your logic just a bit, if for no other reason than I suspect you might actually enjoy the give and take. Isn't the absence of a phono input also saying "I don't care if you want to hang on to that turntable - you can't use it with our processor."? After all, one can easily go online and buy a composite to s-video (and vice-versa) converter cable for a heck of a lot cheaper than a decent phono stage, and that would solve that issue for VCR die-hards. Why the inconsistency?

I'll go along with this one. For one thing, I would think that we'd get rid of s-video before composite - simply because the number of devices with s-video that don't also have component video are pretty small. My S-VHS VCR from 1995 and my SMS-1 are the only two I have that fall in this category, and the SMS-1 would work equally well via composite as via s-video. There's also LaserDisc, of course, and some older game consoles (Dreamcast, for example). There's even a precedent - the pictures from CEDIA showed that OPPO's Blu-ray player will retain composite video but omit s-video. As a result, I figured that we'd see the s-video connections follow the composite video connections into oblivion (if they didn't get eliminated first), making the converters you mentioned not terribly useful.

Just to play with the "devil's advocate" perspective a bit more, here's another scenario. We still have analog audio inputs, since both the turntable and the VCR need it. We have to decide whether to drop a phono preamp or composite video inputs, but s-video inputs will stay no matter what (looking out for those LaserDisc players). If we include a phono preamp, it will not be as good a quality as a separate phono preamp, so the owner may still elect to put a standalone phono preamp in the system. The VCR is not S-VHS, so composite is the best we have. The surround processor can pipe composite video and s-video straight into the video processor, where it gets deinterlaced, converted to digital for HDMI output, and possibly scaled to an HD resolution. If we keep the composite input, it's a straight shot into the video processor (and thus the "best" picture quality possible). If we drop the composite input, we need to find an adapter that converts to s-video. Can we assume that a composite to s-video adapter provides transcoding without image degradation? Probably not, as this process is not simply changing plugs - s-video splits the picture out into two signals, and if that split is not handled right you may get visible artifacts. If we eliminate the phono preamp, the alternative will most likely be of better audio quality. If we eliminate the composite input, the alternative will most likely be of worse quality and could certainly not do more than equal the quality. One could argue that those video artifacts are not enough justification to retain the inputs, because nobody in their right mind should even be using composite in this day and age, but that gets back to the idea of whether a manufacturer is being rude to their customer base or not. (How's that for coming full circle! )