Wow....just wow. End of summer or late fall is quite optimistic given what I saw in that update. I think the lesson here is that maybe it is better to keep new projects under wraps until they're finished (or mostly finished). Personally, I don't think the 978 is going to be relevant by the time it sees the light of day, but perhaps there are folks that will buy it "just because."

As for the HPAS, that would be interesting. A review I read of the Atlantic product said that it was made in China. Sigh....

Best,

^^^

Why would you say the 978 won't be relevant when it's released? There are VERY few pre/pros out there with XT32, with none I know of in development. That in itself makes it relevant. Plus, it sounds to me like the Outlaws are really trying to nail this thing and will cater to those of us with champagne tastes but beer budgets. Yes, it's taking longer then anyone would like but I appreciate Outlaw's honesty and sharing of the technical issues they are trying to overcome.

Firstly, I definitely appreciate the information flow, even when I felt the information was negative. The silent treatment was foolish.

MultEQ XT32 is available today (and has been available since 2010) on a number of Onkyo/Integra and Denon products. I'm assuming that it's also available (or will be soon) on Marantz products since those come from the same company that manufactures Denon gear. A nice feature, though I note that all the platforms that support it today are 9.2 rather than 7.1...interesting. However, it doesn't make up for the long list of missing features that are found even on low-end AVR's these days which have been discussed to death in these threads. I just don't see the appeal. But hey, maybe I'm wrong. It happens from time to time. Maybe the sound quality will be so mind-bending that people will be willing to overlook the missing features.

Best,

I would have liked some confirmation of a price point. It definitely sounds like the 978 is going to be more than $1500. Lots of R&D will do that to ya!!

I have to very respectfully disagree with Ritz2. I firmly believe that it is all the "features" that cause these types of units to be too complex and therefore prone to reliability issues. I for one would never need or use all the features that the 978 will not have. Heck it already has more than I personally will use now. The Outlaws promoted this from the begining as a "simple" processor with a focus on SQ. Well, simple it has proven not to be, but I am holding out for that mind bending SQ that we all love from previous Outlaw products. At the right price point, that is something I will still buy.

That's cool. I can't imagine how long the dev process would be if they hadn't left all those "complex" features out that have been integrated with even low budget AVRs from a raft of other manufacturers for quite some time now.

I think it would have to be pretty competitively priced to attract much attention. But we'll see what happens when it eventually ships.

Best,

OK, took me a while to find what y'all were referencing.



6 to 9 months would be my estimate.

I do appreciate the technical detail (and honesty thereof) about what they've been working on.

I read a post on AVSforum towards the end of the 2011 winter season where the poster was reporting that his Marantz dealer had been informed by Marantz that an AV8005 processor with MultEQ XT32 was coming out in the spring of 2011 to replace the very well reviewed but aging AV8003. Of course we all know what happened in March 2011; the earthquake may have changed some of those plans.

The newer Marantz model numbers now end on a "6" and a lot of folks are expecting an AV8006 to show up sometime soon. Considering that the lower end AV7005 has received excellent reviews, if an AV8006 MultEQ XT32 equipped processor with many more bells and whistles were to ship this year even at a $2500 price point (similar to the AV8003), it would definitely hurt Outlaw's sales of the 978.

If you visit Audyssey's web site there is a tool to search for products using MultEQ XT32. I didn't look at them all, but a number of them were in the $2-3K range. I suspect that number will creep downwards as it becomes available on more and more products. It basically seems to be the same as MultEQ XT with a higher resolution. It will be interesting to hear how it compares to the Emotiva Tact implementation. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that we might be seeing other AVR's with XT32 in the $1000-1500 range by the time the 978 ships. If that ends up being the case, the 978 will be up against much more full featured products at a price point that may be difficult for them to match with a low volume product like the 978. One thing that the 978 does have going for it is the inclusion of balanced pre-outs. It will be interesting to see how things shake out.

Best,

Bob wrote:
Yes, one will be a "sound bar" with H-PAS. As Peter told me, this is public knowledge because he mentioned it in an Atlantic Technology press conference at CEDIA. Peter demoed H-PAS speakers at CES2010 and the bass from them was impressive indeed.