As you note, it's too soon to compare the Outlaw to the Emotiva unit. The Torino chip is something of an unknown quantity, whereas the Reon is something folks have a lot more experience with. Genesis has been behind the curve on video processing for a number of years now (they relied on the Faroudja for too long). I think that the Emo-Q is related to Cirrus's SNAP (or whatever they call it) room correction, which doesn't have the prominence of Audyssey or the commercial / studio heritage of Trinnov. Unfortunately, though, I've not paid a lot of attention to Emotiva since I withdrew from the LCM-1 debacle a year or more ago. That combined with the limited details available on both units leaves me feeling like it's just too soon to say anything definitive about any comparisons.

I don't know where the 997 will be built. I think that Etronics may have some manufacturing facilities in China, but they are a Korean company with Korean manufacturing facilities.