This was posted on Facebook today by Scott:

Hello Fellow Audiophiles,

As those of you who have followed the progress of the Model 997 on our forum the Outlaw Saloon know, we are unable to launch the Model 997 until Sherwood Newcastle launches their version of the platform. While we certainly believed that their version of this joint venture would be shipping by now, we are unfortunately in a holding pattern until they do launch. Upon a successful launch of the Newcastle receiver, our version of the platform (the Model 997 Preamp Processor), will follow approximately 60 days later.

Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding.

Scott

Waaaaaahhhhhhh !

That confirms what we've known for some time. Good to get an update from Scott, though.

The AVS Forum is full of angry posters taking shots at Sherwood due to this delay. It has gotten to the point where it is a useless forum. If that's how frustrated the consumers are, imagine how frustrated Outlaw Audio must be. I think the frustration would be mitigated somewhat if we could understand what is causing the big hold-up.

Well, actually, most of the posts in the Sherwood thread are folks taking shots at Sherwood mostly just to be taking shots - I don't think any of them have any intention of buying an R-972. The folks who are truly interested in it seem to have left the thread alone while waiting for some real news.

AVS drives me nuts sometimes. I'm pulling for Outlaw. I hope the 997 comes out sooner rather than later and makes the wait worthwile.

I see AVS as a potentially very useful resource as well as a good example of why you should always consider the source for the words you read (rather than merely accepting them at face value). Also, I've never used an "ignore list" on a forum, but I've got a pretty decent version of it between my ears and there are certain forum members and threads there that can give it a workout sometimes.