As I have posted before, Outlaw would probably have been better served continuing with the partnership with Sherwood Newcastle and the Korean firm that made the 990.

Well said renov8r. Shoulda coulda woulda...

As outsiders we don’t know the terms and working relationship between Sherwood (Inkel??) and OutlawAudio. I had worked at a startup on a very innovative project (think along the line of Facebook but it was over 10 years ago :>). From that experience, I learned that there is a time it seems right just to walk away and cut your loss, no matter how promising the end product could be and how much blood and sweat you have put in. Perhaps I should have tried harder to stay on. No. I did not make a dime from that :<

Just want to add my .02 to the Sherwood R972.

After my new home theater room was finally completed early last year I was pounding on Scott’s door to be the first one to get the 978 (meanwhile using the 1070 as a stop gap). Months and quarters went by and still without the 978. Eventually I acquired a Sherwood R972 with Trinnov as a dare even after hearing all the initial horror stories from various forums. Honestly I was surprised how well Trinnov in the R972 works in my setup (R972 feeding the Outlaw 7125 amp driving PSB Synchrony Speakers). The sound field was simply amazing. I heard all the nuances I had never noticed before. Even my wife asked me if I upgraded the system and she cannot tell the difference between my ProAC Response 2S driven by Monarchy Audio gears and my JVC bookshelf system. The R972 does work relatively bug free in my setup but not without some annoyances. The GUI is dated and it’s very confusing to operate to select the different sound options (perhaps it’s just me). I am afraid to touch it after it is now configured :> It also takes a second or two for the R972 to lock on digital audio streams. Each time the audio stream is “paused” like when you pause a movie, it takes another second or so for it to lock on again. For movies it is not that much of an issue since you don’t skip around too much. However, it gets more annoying when you jump from channel to channel watching cable TVs. Perhaps this is a hardware/design limitation since multiple firmware updates did not eliminate that delay. From following the R972 since it came out end of 2009 (I believe) it took Sherwood months and months if not a year to get most of the kinks out. Hey by the way, I heard their latest firmware 1.48 introduces loud pops via HDMI (since I only use SPDIF for digital audio, I have not noticed any issue yet) that many people had to roll back to 1.47. Outlaw might not even have a choice other than walking away from Sherwood. I am sure they did not expect all the delays associated with their 978.

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When I read posts like yours and renov8r regarding Trinnov, it just makes me wish Outlaw would have produce a pre with Trinnov even more. What a bummer.

BTW When I demo'd a Sherwood 972 at my local audio dealer's shop I knew that the "flaw" of dropping the audio when changing TV stations while still attached to the same source was a total deal killer that my family would not put up with. The dealer''s honesty in tellling me he did believe it would be possible for any "firm ware" to change that prevented me from pulling the trigger on that purchase. I trust that his knowledge of all the details that would have been needed to re-engineer the whole HDMI layer on that device was correct. I suspect the Outlaws may have learned the same thing and I suspect that the lessons they learned from that will make their upcoming offerings the kind of products that you listen to ALL THE TIME, as opposed to the sort of product that your wife / kids relegate to "dad's pile of stuff that we think sucks despite how much he spent on it" ...

When I read posts like yours and renov8r regarding Trinnov, it just makes me wish Outlaw would have produce a pre with Trinnov even more. What a bummer.

Retep,
I know what you mean. For quite a while I was keeping my hopes up that Outlaw might revisit the Trinnov Optimizer option one day after 978. Until recently Outlaw was listed as a Licensing partner on Trinnov Audio's web site but it has since been removed. Only Sherwood (Licensing) and ADA (OEM) are on Trinnov's site now. I am not holding my breath for an Trinnov offering from Outlaw Audio any time in the near future. Like you said.. what a bummer.

make their upcoming offerings the kind of products that you listen to ALL THE TIME, as opposed to the sort of product that your wife / kids relegate to "dad's pile of stuff that we think sucks despite how much he spent on it" ...