http://www.outlawaudio.com/about/factory.html

"Factory? We're Outlaws! We don't need no stinkin' factory!!"
It's true, we have no factory, and we never will. If you are not building huge quantities of products, factories are very inefficient and add unnecessary overhead to the final manufacturing cost. We are designers and engineers. First we spec and design our products, and then we locate the best possible venue for their manufacture.
We are convinced that by matching a specific product to its ideal manufacturing venue, we will always deliver the best and most cost-effective A/V components. This development and manufacturing model, combined with a direct sales channel exclusive to the Internet, allows us to offer the best possible values to our customers.

The software and firmware bits are what is important here. The hardware platform is likely to be someone else's commoditized design. What actually gets "designed" by Outlaw other than the dimensions of the box and faceplate would be interesting to know. Anyone? I think Peter mentioned something about Scott going to China. I could be mistaken, but unless there's another Scott @ Outlaw, Scott Jackson is a sales/marketing person, not an engineer.

Best,

Again, I most respectfully ask what it is that is duplicative of the upcoming 978?

I would be curious to hear you explain your view of who / what is offering a "commoditized" overall design for any prepro...

Walk into any sort of store that sells ANYTHING related to "audio" in the broadest sense and while the functionality may be similar from a "30,000 foot level" the fact is there are relativeluy few offerings with the feature set that has been promised of the 978, and here I don't just mean the "software", but the analog portion of any pre-pro has LOTS of design decisions. Everything from what sorts of input tolerances are allowed to how the volume controls are designed have a rather immportant impact on what ultimately is sent to the amps. As has been discussed before there are only a handful of pre-pro units that could be considered "electrical peers" of the presumed features of the 978 and the value proposition of most of that small group is considerably more constrained -- many can only be considered the sorts of products that the top 1% of earners would ever be in a position to buy.

I find it odd that the skills /qualifications of a founder of Outlaw are being questioned. Scott Jackson's title, as Director of Sales, has included a hands-on role in product development, internal and external testing, logistics, QC, vendor relations and many other tasks that in a larger firm would certainly fall onto more specialized staff. The leanness of the firm and the past success have probably forced many competitors to re-evaluate how much overhead makes sense in this day of highly virtualized production.

Finally I find it most curious that you consider the "software and firmware" as so important, yet continue to suggest that there is something bad / cheap / undesirable about "standardized offerings". Taking that literally I would suggest that highest value software in the 978, the room equalization, is definately a "product" of the LOS ANGLES CA, USA based Audysssey LLC ( founded by Tomlison Holman & Chris Kyriakis of USC's Imersive Audio Lab) which is certainly offered, in admittedly a wide range of variations, by a huge variety of firms, all of whom do a substantial portion of their assembly in a part of the world that you are vehment in your distaste for...

Jeebus, you're going far afield...to what end...who knows? Wow, Tom Holman...there's a name I haven't heard in ages. I've still got an original Apt pre-amp that was designed by Tom. Not sure what your fascination is with EveAnna, though I suspect she'd get a kick out of it. We actually went to college together and I started off my audiophile odyssey with a pair of VTL compact 100's. Not sure what that has to do with anything, but since you're sharing, I felt obligated to contribute. LOL

As for the Outlaw pre-amp, you're fooling yourself if you think it's going to turn out to be anything more than a reference design from some other player in an Outlaw box with (perhaps) some firmware bits unique to Outlaw's "design." If/when the darned thing ever ships, surely someone can open one up and confirm that. Given the cozy relationship with D&M Holdings, that's where I'd place my bet. That doesn't make Outlaw bad or incompetent, but nobody is going to design and build a custom unit at that price point and with what I'd imagine are going to be relatively low production numbers.

Re: Scott

He's a great guy and I've spoken to him a couple of times on the phone. However, he's not an engineer or a software developer. Call Outlaw's number and ask him for yourself.

As for my distaste for production in China, I think we all know where I stand. Feed that monster at your own peril.

Best,

I am not sure what the argument is here. I don't recall Outlaw proclaiming that any of their products are designed from the ground up by Outlaw. The amps are from ATI with a different faceplate, at least the high power ones. (Which are manufactured in the USA by the way).

I have only seen that they sell products that they have oversight in development and stand by their product with superior service.

I am curious to know if there is any permanent engineering staff at the Outlaw hideout. Does anyone know? Gonk?

I agree with Ritz, there is notthing wrong with this business model. It seems successful for Outlaw.

I would not call it an "arguement" so much as friendly speculation and refutation. My contention is that there is so limited a set of offerings in the pre-pro category that it is all but impossible for there to be some firm cranking out "generic reference designs" (whatever that might even mean is quite a mind twister) just waiting to order its yellow horde to slap name plaques on 'em to knock a death blow to a non-existant US based industry.

Just becuase the Outlaw business model includes reselling Marantz pre-pros does not mean that they have any more ability to tap into the D&M "supply chain" than a firm like Best Buy would tap Panasonic to build its house brand TV sets...

Similarly if one was to speculate that perhaps Outlaw partnered with a firm like ATI to supply some schematics / prototypes for the 978 I would wonder if there would ever be anything "under the covers" to link the "heritage" of that firm's costly solution to the likely much more affordable 978...

Firms like Denon, part of D&M, do not even offer a pre-pro. Other competitors, like Onkyo / Integra would seem highly averse to sharing technology / manufacturing with Outlaw and their much leaner business...

While it can be fun to speculate on "who makes what for whom" in my limited experience the similarities between the various products assembled by large off shore firms is all but nonexistant. The well built responsive iPads churned out by hundreds of thousands working in Foxconn plants are nothing likethe junkiy Chimei LCD monitors made by the same firm.

I do. This is from the announcement that the 997 was being cancelled, and replaced by the 998:

"Given our experience with the Model 997 project, it is important to emphasize that our new flagship processor will NOT be derived from an existing platform. It will be an Outlaw exclusive design, built from the ground up to our own specifications and manufactured for us by a well respected consumer electronics manufacturer."

FWIW, here is a quote from "Peter's Processor Update" (10/01/10) where he first introduced the Model 978:

renov8r:

I find your statements above almost bizarre given Outlaws own history which you appear to know little about. As an example here is the lineage of a previous Outlaw prepro the 950 as quoted from the 950 thread.



Now there are two Eastech's (possibly related). One in Malaysia (that OEM'ed the 1050, 950, 970 and 1070) and the other in Taiwan. The latter does manufacturing in China and is exactly the type of company you say doesn't exist. Note: I don't know if Eastech OEM'ed the 1050, 970 and 1070 to anyone else.

Going back to history for a bit. The 990 came from Inkel in Korea who owns Sherwood Newcastle. The 990 and Sherwood P-965 lines are extremely similar from the pre-pro perspective (as was the R-965 - Outlaw at one point sold the remaining R-965's). Inkel was also the partner on the failed 997 which had its own Newcastle equivalent the R-972 including the Trinnov.

A little bit of googling on Inkel found this:

Perhaps I should have included the limiting condition of "HDCP Compliant HDMI pre-pro with room correction" to clarify that my recollection of what the 978 has been promised to be is signficantly different than pre-amps of the previous era.

I rather doubt that Inkel will be the manufacturing partner for the 978 and like GaryB I tend to think that the only way to get a 978 will be through Outlaw.