I have my reservations about whether a small firm like Outlaw could pull off manufacturing here in the states where larger firms have failed. Two firms that come to mind here in the USA that have survived over the years are Macintosh and Magnepan. Both of them have sterling reputations and fill a niche in the market. They also don't over-reach. They know there strong areas and tend to stick to them.

Acquiring a building and staffing it with clerical, assembly line and security people, not to mention training the workforce to assemble product would be a multi-year project which would probably result in a reduction in quality in the short term. I just read where controlling interest in Onkyo USA was purchased by Gibson Guitar and they are now the second largest owner of Onkyo Corp. If a big company like Onkyo needs investment funds where does a small firm stand a chance?

[quote=XenonMan]
In recent years, there has been considerable consolidation in the CE industry and I am afraid even the venerable brand McIntosh is no longer a US based company having been purchased a number of years ago by D&M holdings the Japanese organization makers of Denon and Marantz, and along the way they have purchased other brands like, among others, Snell and Boston Acoustic speakers. Magnepan is one of the few still manufacturing domestically in Minnesota.

I suspect it won't be long before D&M gradually guts McIntosh, using some of their generic "platforms" assembled in China, slapping a McIntosh faceplate on it, and profiting off the brand. It sounds laughable, but in a world where "audiophiles" will spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on relatively generic cabling with fancy techflex covers and (mumble)-plated connectors, anything is possible.

Best,

Personally, I was hoping that Outlaw would work with D&M to have McIntosh build the 978/998 for Outlaw. It would certainly give them more profit out of their factory than they have been likely to get otherwise. The differentiation could have been a combination of components (e.g. higher quality DAC's, more memory/faster CPU) and functions/features that are in other D&M products (e.g. Networking). I know that Gonk said D&M would have no interest in this, but it made some sense to me.