We are still in Beta and we cannot commit to any hard release date. We are working through the typical bugs and each one requires a complete re-test of the unit. Our intent is to attempt a release with nothing flawed. This sounds obvious but it is very hard to achieve in reality. We are making good progress, however.

As for the $1499 that is the introductory price and we intend to honor it for those who have committed. In the future, we don't know yet.

Peter

Has the price changed from the estimated $1399 you list on the product page...or is that a pre-holiday anxiety typo?

Typo......My Bad

Peter,

"We are still in Beta and we cannot commit to any hard release date. We are working through the typical bugs and each one requires a complete re-test of the unit."

That would seem to mean that the firmware is different.

Can you say if it's just housekeeping or remote control compatibility type issues, or will the 997 have more/different functionality than the 972?

It doesn't suggest how different, though, as last I heard Sherwood was also doing beta testing still...

When will you be able to post pictures, preliminary user manual, and more detailed spec's? I'm itching to compare the 997 with the 990 and current offerings from "O","D", and "Y", (And vaporware from "E").

The R-972 has been released although in very small numbers. Several owners have posted on AVS their impressions on the R-972. Here is a link to a post on AVS from Jeff at S/N.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=16764595#post16764595

So it appears that the R-972 will be more available the middle to the end of this month. So I would guess that means the release of the 997 should not be too far off .

Bill

Most of the reports I've seen have been from what I thought Jeff said were pre-release units, but I could be wrong. We know part of the agreement was a 60 day delay, so if Sherwood has it "launched" by the end of this month that would put the 997 arriving in late September.

"Several owners have posted on AVS their impressions on the R-972."

Well there's Jeff from Sherwood and Chuck; not sure of his affiliation.

So I don't think it's in the hands of any "civilians" yet.

Last I read he posted that they have distributed about 1 per state and that a much larger shipment would arrive by mid July. So for purposes of any agreement it looks like the 60 day clock should be ticking as of mid July unless there's some caveat in the contract requiring X units sold or something.