The Ref70 is an impressive looking piece of gear, but it looks to be at least twice the price of the Model 997 (street prices I found in a quick search were around $3,150 and I think the MSRP is around $3,800) and judging by some searching I did this morning it had a similarly delayed launch (mention of a planned January 2008 release followed by folks wondering in late September when it would arrive). Plenty of inputs, some interesting control capabilities, a Reon-based video processor, and I would expect very good sound quality, but it's in a different price range that should be accompanied by some associated benefits in performance. At that price point, you are starting to compete with the AVM40 and AVM50 just as much as you are with the Integra 9.9/Onkyo 886. At the same time, it doesn't appear to have on-board decoding of the new audio formats or any form of room correction, both of which will be offered by the Model 997.

oops!!!

I always find it odd that someone comes to a manufactures site's user forum and pushes a competitors product. Personally I think it's in poor taste. I can totally understand doing this at place like sound on sound or avsforum. Now if someone specifically asks for an alternative, okay... maybe.

As Gonk said, the 997 is at a different price point and some of us are loyal customers and are willing to wait. For me, there's no rush and I've owned B&K (507), it has a different sound, that's not for me. I'm happy with my current setup with the 990 and will buy the 997 a few months after it arrives. In the meantime I patiently wait for the 997.

July would be great. My birthday is in September and I know exactly what I will give myself. :p

almost sounds like a troll.....

I pop in every month or so to get the latest too...

me ... willing to wait.
Timing should be good w/ the new oppo BR-universal player going thru 2nd round of testing.

Later,
_Mark

The B & K 70 will have a "free" card update available to all owners which will allow all decoding.

I too loved the 990, thought it was the best out there for the money. then I tried the Integra 9.8 & 9.9...sounded better and a step up. The B & K just floored me and continues to. I know it's tacky to post here I suppose but it really is that good of a pre/pro. Like has been said, it literally sounds like you are unwrapping your speakers that have been dampened by many layers of blankets. Sound is crisp, frighteningly clear. The glitches are frustrating but firmware updates are slowing fixing that too.

I'm sure the 997 will sound great knowing the Outlaw folks.

I'm always a bit worried about future hardware updates to add features - nothing against B&K, but there have been so many times when promises like that have yielded nothing. Personally, though, I'm not terribly hung up on decoding. Get a good player that can decode for you, and it's taken care of.

Something in the Ref70's price range should sound better than an Integra or a 990. If budget permitted, I'd be quite content to try out a Ref70 or an Anthem. Personally, I found the Onkyo 885's sound to be surprisingly comparable to the 990's (the higher list price and inclusion of Audyssey offered potential for more significant improvements than what I got), which combined with a lot of extra bells and whistles and an interface that left something to be desired. My wife actively hates the 885, but I've been able to minimize the factors that contribute to her dislike and it's been useful for testing lately. She's already asking when we can go back to using an Outlaw processor, though...

Flat, noiseless, distortion-free sound should be found in all gear at all price points. A $1000 pre/pro can (and should) sound nearly identical to a $10,000 pre/pro. Achieving this is probably the easiest thing a manufacturer can do.

"Like removing several layers of blankets from your speakers"? If I wrapped several blankets around my speakers it would cut off all of the highs and most of the mids. Are we to really believe that this statement is more than hyperbole at its worst?

As someone who is interested in knowing more about the real alternatives out there, a little more objectivity would be greatly appreciated.

You would think so, but I've often found it to not be as true as it could be.

If you take that thinking a step further to a baseline image quality for LCD TVs, (or plasma vs plasma, etc.) all should have a baseline picture that should match other displays of that category. But manufacturers tend to "tweak" their product to set it apart from others on a comparison shelf. I imagine the same can be said for audio equipment.

I personally judge how flat an audio system is by comparing to my old Forté stereo rig, and I'm continuously amazed on how colored some newer "high-end" equipment sounds in comparison. The Outlaw amps and pre/pros have come the closest to matching my old rig than anything I have been able to A/B test.

And that's the main reason I'm here!

But I was not taking that thinking further and would not want to such an obviously unrelated comparison.

I'm talking only about the audio performance of a pre/pro: how it sounds.

Manufacturers learned how to get near-perfect sound from analogue devices decades ago. Digital stereo soon after the CD's introduction. Multi-channel soon after it appeared. Differences in sound (distortion, noise, and frequency response) should, and for all intents are, negligible. Yes there can be noticeable differences between devices in how signals get decoded and processed (soundstage, presence, depth, etc.) - depending on the mode - but the basic "sound" should be nearly identical. And certainly not so different as to conjure images of multiple layers of blankets wrapped tightly around one's speakers!

I'm really surprised that more people don't challenge such remarks. Otherwise we degenerate into audio voodoo land.

I am one to avoid snake oil and things being over-hyped myself, but different CD players sound different. Saying that digital signals have been 'mastered' is rather naive.... just like analog signals.

Dealing with analog signals may be mastered, but any turntable maker knows you have to put a ton of money into analog to make everything sensitive enough to pick up the information on the record.

In digital you can easily have sloppy amplification, regardless of up-sampling. Converting digital to analog can be very noise if there is a cheap OPAMP anywhere in the circuit.