I think the over/under bet was somewhere around June 30 with people taking either side of the bet. I'm wondering if the tragic disasters facing Japan will push that date further out. My understanding is that some chip manufacturers have been directly impacted, but it is not clear what type of chip manufacturers are involved nor when Japan will even be able to begin the recovery process.

Any thoughts?

To say the least, the entire parts situation is completely up in the air. Everyone is scrambling to determine what this means for their products- component by component, and the information about availability is changing daily.

Expect disruptions all across our industry. In that regard we are checking about the status of the Marantz products we are offering.

You will also see examples of parts pricing gouging as companies attempt to keep their production lines going.

With the availability of fully-functioning (hdmi, 3d, room correction, etc.) receivers in the market today, is anyone out their regretting or at least re-thinking their decision to go with separates, a piece of the market that is seemingly years behind in product development and can't seem to get a good model to ship at a "reasonable" price point - the Marantz being a possible exception, I guess. Love my 990, but it's getting a little long in the tooth - don't see Outlaw 978 in the cards, particularly with Peter's comment above which, through no fault of Outlaw's, is making it seem like it will never be released. Just wondering how loud the gnashing of teeth might be at this point.

First, for at least the last 10 or 15 years there have always been receivers available with more features than processors could offer. It's the nature of the R&D process. The attractions for processors were mostly related to sound quality - partly because of the benefits resulting from the removal of power amps from the chassis and partly because designers often invested more effort into sound quality on processors. I think that's still true today.

Second, I don't see anything in Peter's post that suggests the Model 978 will be killed by this. All I see is a (reasonable) suggestion that the quake and tsunami may delay availability of some chips. D&M Holding announced this morning that they were closing one of their Japanese plants for at least a week to make repairs to it, which will impact both Denon and Marantz. Once it comes back online, I'm sure there are also going to be issues with delivering any goods that get built. Any components in the Model 978 that are made by factories in Japan may be hard to get, and if the factory building the Model 978 doesn't have enough on hand right now to build a full production run (and assuming any such stockpile could avoid being poached for other production while shortages exist) then it's entirely possible that production will have to wait until those chips are available again.

No regrets here. I originally started with the 970/7075 combo. At the time, the performance for movies and in particular music was the best I had experienced. I easily sold the 7075 for almost the price I paid and bought a 7500 but used a Denon Reciever as a pre/pro. There were some obvious benefits such as HDMI connectivity and the lossless codecs. There was a decrease in sound quality in terms of music listening. The Denon works well (and has no glitches) but does not sound as good for CD listening. This is something that is important to me. There are lots of recievers with the latest and greatest. What I am waiting for is the Outlaw product that goes back to basics - that is good sound. Yeah, some good video switching/conversion and room calibration would be great, but what I really want is something to take me back 30 years.

1. The separate amplifier, in my opinion, is a far superior set up. Look at the guts of Outlaw amps, they are very well designed and use excellent components. I don't believe that you will see a Toroidal transformer of that caliber in a receiver.

2. Outlaw amps never get hot to the touch, you can run them all day. This in part goes back to the design and the Toroidal. My subwoofer also has a Toroidal, and that is the same as my Outlaw amp, never gets hot. You can make toast on some of the Onkyo and some Denon receivers.

3. With a separate Pre/Pro, you have the liberty to add all of the features that you want, there's plenty of room.

4. As new technology develops, and you desire to upgrade, you only need to purchase a new Pre/Pro.

5. If one part of your system goes down and is in need of repair, your not without the entire system. I am sure all of us have spare receivers laying around that we could plug in.

As far as the 978 goes, the economy as well as the HDMI 1.4, room correction, 3D, etc has seen some changes the last couple of years. I say let all of this iron out and release the unit when it's ready and when it's right. I am more concerned with Outlaw as company than us getting the latest and greatest. I want Outlaw to do well and prosper and I hope that the last couple of years have not hurt the company or put them in a bad situation financially.

And on a final note; as soon as the 978 is announced for pre-order, I will be one of the first to put the money up.

Most of us that chose separates did so because of the sound quality we can get from more powerful amps. Another great advantage is that the systems overall are more flexible to upgrade. With a high powered amp I can upgrade my speakers without worrying about whether it will be able to handle the new loads. Also I don't worry about mixing and matching impedances so much, because I know the Outlaw amps are "all channels driven" and generally outperform their specs. That is not generally true of receivers, and when it is, they tend to run hotter than I like. All that heat in the same box as all those electronics means premature failure down the road.

Just to clarify, I'm not forklifting my 990 for an AVR any time soon - I agree with pretty much all the comments about separates - just getting a little envious at times of the advances made that I must wait for...

NRBQLou - "regret" is strong and to that exact question I would say "no", I don't regret buying a 990 what now seems like many years ago,... but I have to admit I have been having similar thoughts lately as you expressed in your first post above. The gap in time or features between receivers and processors seems to have widened. I too have considered jumping to a receiver as a processor because it seems tough to find good processor choices right now, even adjusting for a time lag. I can't bring myself to do that (and if anything 'will cave to a couple-year old proc before a receiver), but I'll second your point in that in seems like a low point for us right now.

What many consider "advances" are considered by some of us as "bells and whistles" and are usually attractive only when compared to another device which lacks the item. Years ago I had a Sony receiver which had all kinds of sound modes like stadium and opera and a host of others. I almost never used them because they changed the sound in ways which, although predictable, also garbled a lot of music. For all the carping we all do regarding which wires sounds the best, we all too often use some feature which distorts the sound to a degree that coat hangers never could. I guess it is the nature of the beast that even though we profess to want the processors to be completely honest in the reproduction of the input at the output, we still want the gismos that sound cool or allow us to win in the contest between ourselves.