Wow! that was quick, gonk. You are exactly right--what we ask of a pre/pro in this day and age is nothing short of herculean. And people like the Outlaws have countless hard decisions to make in design and pre-production. And for my money they mostly make the right ones. But that doesn't mean I can't be disappointed when one of those decisions affects a feature that some people (like me) take for granted.

I have been around the "surround-sound" stuff for what seems like forever (I actually have an old SAE analog time delay from around 1980). The evolution of this expansion of stereo and it's integration with video and television and then computers is fascinating for me. And maybe the biggest struggle for me when considering the 997 isn't that I might have to buy an outboard pre/preamp, but that the absence of a phono input really marks the end of an era and the death of the 'Glory Days' for me and many of my generation that actually LIVED the Maxell magazine ad photo (you know the one).

I want to retract my use of the word "dealbreaker" since it was far too strong a word to describe what I was really thinking. That doesn't mean I'm not going to struggle.