Well methinks that there is no final destination here so many of us will be jumping off stations. We have somebody going for Integra and another going for Onkyo and the list will go on. The only reason I am not getting off at the next station is that I simply am not ready to buy now. I would like to be clear on my position in that IF I were ready to buy a pre/pro now I would make a decision by the end of September after my month-long vacation. I will be leaving town for a month. After I come back I'm agoing shopping. If there is any positive news on the 978 then I will deal with that issue that time. If however I was not leaving town, then I would be buying in the next month or two. I am now waiting for Marantz's AV7007 to see what's that about.

I don't want to knock Outlaw. They make good products and they are making an attempt to release a fantastic pre/pro but perhaps this is beyond their capacity to engineer and release. In short their pockets are not that deep.

Hey I feel like I woke up a GIANT.
I'm glad I did.
The facts are Outlaw has dropped the ball since the announcement of both the 978 and the 998 we the customer have been left in the dark. Surely it is our decision to take responsibility for our actions and likewise is Outlaw.
The announcements of both processors were at least a year ago? Since then Outlaw has dropped the 998 and and cannot get onboard with the 978 either with it's production or marketing. In the meantime they have been giving us sales opportunities with Marantz and secret codes to enter doors that promote large sale opportunities.
While some maybe happy with the special sale events that some of us have to stay up until late night just before we can grab a few hours of sleep before we have to get up and go to work I do not.
I wonder what kind of response Outlaw received or should I say Marantz received with the latest margin sale event.
If the 978 is born I think it could be a real let down for some people. There is a lot of competition in the world of electronics...where only the strong survive.
I think it is a good thing that we let our feelings known to Outlaw LLC.

I sincerely hope that the 978 is much MORE than what we have been anticipating. I hope that it will be a landmark processor that we will be talking about on this forum for a long time.
I just cannot believe the stand that Outlaw has taken with this community.
It's not about being a naysayer or having a doom and gloom attitude. It's about communication to loyal customers.

Woke up a giant? It's awake as it ever was as far as I can see. I mean, there are those who are still waiting, those who aren't, and those who are getting bitter about it. Personally I think life is too short to be whining, "Are we there yet?" every week, but I'm not bothered by the situation. When I see what Parasound did, and what Emotiva did, I think Outlaw chose the better of the 2 options.

Says the man who isn't even an Outlaw customer....

I'm not an Emotiva customer (yet), but at least they have a steady track record of refreshing their product, FREQUENT communication with their owner-base and forum contributors, and forward movement of the football on the field. They've had their share of gaffes, but I see genuine progress. Heck, they even purchased Sherbourn after acting as their (one of their?) OEM manufacturers for a while.

By comparison, Outlaw has offered us their amps/subs (which are fine, but a bit expensive these days). They've become resellers of D&M Holdings products (receivers from Marantz, speakers from Snell, etc), and they're offering a bewildering list of gadgets that have nothing to do with their core business. An iPod dock? Surge protectors? Designer HDMI cables? Wireless media/speaker bridges that are a dime a dozen in the market place? Are you shizizzling me?

And all the while they keep fumbling the ball on the product which *ought* to be the core of their business. An audio/theater processor that can tie together all the other tchotchkes they're selling and promoting on page 1 of their website and a driver of sales for things they're actually good at (amps and subs).

I'm sorry, but let's call a spade a spade. They're pretty far behind the 8 ball and I don't see any sign of improvement.

Best,

Actually, I am an Outlaw customer, it's just not In my sig line. Emotiva promised the XPA-100 and the XSP-1 in July and now both have been delayed, until the new year and September respectively. The XMC was originally was promised a year after the UMC release. I'm sure they had a few upears promises in the meantime, but back in March they promised June. Now they are saying "summer". In fact, the majority of Emotiva's new releases are late.

You as usual are being selective in your thoughts on Emo. At times Big Dan sounds like a used car salesman as he goes around his forum changing promises. Once you actually start buying some of their products and know first hand what you are talking about, then you will know what I am talking about.

Best,

Like most I have been following the 978 saga for a while now and currently use a 950 in my HT.I personally can make do with my 950 but when I want to change I will decide either to wait for the 978 or buy something else,not whine about it on this forum or run a good company like outlaw through the mud.I have faith Outlaw will deliver a great pre-pro that will be the best value on the market and I trust that they are working hard to do just that.

Under promise and over-deliver. The mistakes are not in the delays - this happens. The mistakes are talking about products and releases like they're just about to happen when production hasn't even started yet. It's simply bad business to communicate this way with customers. IMO, Outlaw should still be selling the 990 and have been silent on the 998/978 over these past few years.

Twistybox: It was my understanding that the 990 went out of production because parts became unavailable. However, I agree with the general thrust of you post and agree that we should have seen a 990 Model 2.

Certainly Inkel could have done this because Sherwood markets a R-772 receiver which seems to have 990 type features (not talking about sound quality) with HDMI. In addition, they sell the R-972 (the 997 equivalent) and the R-977 (a Networking receiver which feature-wise seems similar to the Marantz line).

My understanding is that they eventually got most of the kinks worked out on the Sherwood R972. In an attempt to get an update on that, I did a google search and found a place selling brand new R-972 (with Trinnov) selling for $600:

http://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-s...D-DTS-HD/1.html

There ya go...the 998 that shoulda been for $600.

Best,

^^^

My impression is that there is still some kind of HDMI signal lock problem that delays audio for a second or two after signal interruption. You might not think that's that big a deal on the surface, but I think I came across a mention, that for example, every time you fast forward through a commercial on a DVR, bingo, it takes 1 or 2s after that to get the audio back. That's a pretty big day to day operational problem IMO. I'm sure there'd be more info about fixed and existing problems of the 972 on AVS though.