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?