There is no way an American made 978 would have come in at 2500. Are there even ANY processors made in the USA? Would there be any factories at present that could manufacture for Outlaw or would they have to build one.

I value the Made In the US approach, but in this case it would be way out of my price range.

Recall that B&K manufactured excellent product in the US and with street prices comparable.. I agree that Theta and Lexicon built processors with astronomical prices, but B&K would be a legit comparison.

B&K produced one HDMI-based processor (v1.3), the Reference 70. It had a list price of something like $3,800 but included some limitations on the audio processing side (couldn't support bitstreaming TrueHD or DTS-HD over HDMI, although I'm 99% sure it could accept multichannel PCM in addition to multichannel analog). They had plans to release an updated processor and a bitstreaming upgrade to the Ref70, but went bankrupt before they could get either into production. The remains of the company were bought by ATI, a long-standing partner of Outlaw's, but I don't know if there were enough resources there to help with the design of a current platform.

$1500 for a Chinese made 978 ... I could have swung that finanically, but would not be
happy about buying a Chinses made product.

$2500 for a US of A made 978 ... I would have to save up longer to swing it financially but would be very happy to buy a US of A made product.

Paul

I think gonk is 100% correct in associating the failure of B&K with its inability to dedicate RESOURCES to a modern pre-pro as any kind of financial difficulties.

I can fully envision that this was a huge part of the decision of Outlaw to find a "manufactuting partner" that was willing to bankroll the potential "money pit" of development in exchange for signing away any rights to the fruits of that effort. Sadly that decision was made when the competitive landscape was different.

It is my belief that the maturity that HDMI now has achieved makes such a trade off less likely to be a necessity for future designs. Think how many iterations of HDMI have been seen in the marketplace since Outlaw embarked on the 978 project -- it was once rare to encounter source components / displays / AV receivers - prepros with such connections and now it is essentially ubiquitous. Surely there are individuals that could be hired / contracted that could architect a design to be implemented on a relatively firm timetable.

Think too of the price premium that HDMI commanded just a few years ago. If we extrapolate both the scarcity of those with skills in implementing HDMI as well as the very different labor market that existed a few years back it is not a stretch to say that the premium for a US designed and assembled prepro may have been more than 2x than a similar product built in cooperation with an Asian manufacturing partner. I certainly could not have swung $3500 for a prepro.

The real question may be can a prepro be assembled NOW stateside with subassemblies built in in either in the US or overseas, with designs OWNED by Outlaw in a reasonable timeframe at a "competitive" price? Well if the Outlaws don't want to end up like B&K I suspect THAT is exactly what they are deciding upon...

renov8r, your assumption may or may not be correct about the failure of B&K. They released the Ref 70 a while back. You guys may very well be right that the Ref 70 was the last nail in the coffin. The advent and implementation of HDMI has cost many electronic integrators big, big problems.

I am banking on the ATI folks to come up with a US made processor. With Theta and B&K in the stable, they may have the talent to pull it off. Not sure if the Outlaws will be involved, but they are my best hope of being my next processor purchase.

I think a lot of folks are really interested in sound quality over bells and whistles. I followed the release of the Ref 70, and the street price was less that the $3,800 gonk reported. The comments on AVS on the limits of the unit made me wait. But I believe they had a quality sounding product. My situation is that I have a system that has a mixture of HDMI for video and digital for audio. When I buy another processor, I want something with superior audio quality over HDMI.

I have not seen any sort of rumors about ATI getting back into the pre-pro biddness in a long long time. Though there are lots of older ATI units still driving moderately complex residential & commercial installation -- when those fail who knows what the custom integrators will need to do... The speed with which firms went from "upstart" to "market leader" to "flame out" was a function of a whole lot of craziness in the residential real estate market and the pace of technology change. With the sorts of turmoil that still is the norm in China I would not be betting on anything.

I live in Sweden and for me it isn't that important if it's made in Germany, use, Canada or whatever. I avoid products being made in china since it's impossible to have a good quality control then. it's a myth products not made in china has poor value, often it's the opposite, especially with speakers, high quality speakers last longer and sound better. ELAC make their high quality speakers in Germany and their budget speakers in china, their quality control seams to pay of in both sound and durability.

lets take two speakers A,B. speaker A is made in Germany for the prize $5000 while speaker B is made in china for the prize $4000, if speaker B lasts 5 years and speaker A during 15 years until you sell it for $1000 which speaker has been most expensive to own?

Anjora, you don't know what you're talking about. As previously mentioned, some of the best products in the world are made in China. So long as quality control is in place, where something is made doesn't matter. It's all about WHO is making it.

PSB Speakers used to make all their products in Canada, but for years now they have had many built in China, including the amazing, award-winning and super high quality built Imagine series.

Apple builds everything in China. I dare you to find a single consumer electronics product with even half the same quality as Apple products built in any other country.

Apple dont offers that good quality but still better than the avarage maby. Apple managed to get people beleave their products have superior qality, this is a combination of marketing and only releasing pruducts in the premium segment.

This is what i would consider as high quality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua95wiuIa4I the 10 year driver warranty is mostly a way to sell since it's almiost impossible to brake a elac driver.