Greetings, gunslingers! I've been away from the Saloon (and the online AV scene in general) for a while now, but wanted to stop by and check in. I hope to do a little trouble-shooting in my system over the holidays and may be in the market for some new hardware, so I'll be hanging around here a bit more soon.

I haven't been around much lately, mostly because work and family have been getting in the way. My responsibilities at the office have been changing over the last six years or so, particularly over the last couple of years, and this year we had some extra stuff going on (migration to a new software package and one of the biggest projects, possibly the biggest, in our company's 65+ year history) that I was heavily involved in. We are still working on the project, but a couple weeks ago we got a major set of deliverables out the door. (For at glimpse of what I've been doing, this image and this image are taken from the building information modeling software we're using, showing just the HVAC components that are in the models - all of which I built in the model during the second half of the year. Our office also did power, lighting, fire alarm, fire protection, and plumbing, but I did the HVAC design and drafting.) Since then, I've been trying to clear out some of the backlog of other work that has accumulated and getting ready for the holidays. I don't expect to post as frequently as in some years past, but I hope to be around a bit more regularly than I have been in the last couple of years.

Happy Holidays Gonk.

We've all missed you. We look forward to your opinions and musings.

Peter

Welcome back Gonk. Missed your postings and reviews.

Rob

We missed you Gonk, Welcome Back!!!

Welcome back, gonk! The 975 drew me back a few months ago. Nice to see you again!

A Hearty Welcome Back Gonk! The saloon has become pretty low key for sometime since the ultimate demise of a new high end pre-amp BUT I think all of us still stop in occasional in hopes of a new announcement. Xenonman has taken on a lot of helping posts that you also provided. Hopefully the saloon can get back to general audio discussions while we wait....for the next BIG product roll-out. Glad work is going well and that you continue quality time with your family. We missed your friendly and helpful posts and welcome you back even if only for occasional stop.

Welcome back.
You have been missed.

It's been three and a half years since this post, and the project I referred to is still going - with a few components of the project under construction (anywhere from a month to a year away from substantial completion) and a couple pieces still in design. It's been a pretty extraordinary process.

Good to hear you are still with us. Any thoughts on current Outlaw projects?

Looking forward to your insight!

So, gonk, are you on the Beta list for the 976? Any experience with REW?

The Ultra-X13 is a hell of a sub, as I posted elsewhere the other day.

I like what they've done with the RR2160, and the amp offerings are as solid as ever.

I moved to a Marantz 7702mkII last fall (was going 4K with the UDP-203 and the $1000 sale price when they were getting ready to roll out the 7703 was too good to pass up) and am quite happy with it, but the 976 does look interesting. I saw that Atmos/DTS-X were going to show up in a later unit - to be honest, I think having a non-Atmos offering is good for a great many people. So many people never really got past 5.1 that adding the channels required for Atmos is impractical for a lot of consumers, even among those of us who are really serious about the hobby. Being able to get the audio and video quality of a top-line processor without having to pay for the extra DAC channels and other provisions associated with Atmos sounds good, and the rest of the feature set is appealing.

Streaming/network integration into products that don't need it is still pretty popular, but I'm pleased to see a little bit of a shift away from that trend. On the one hand, my Vizio 4K TV and my Vizio 4K computer monitor at work both have the guts of a ChromeCast built into them so they can act as "Smart TVs" in a manner that I'm pretty comfortable with, but for services like Netflix I've found that standalone devices (Roku, Amazon FireStick, etc.) are easier for the family to use than apps built into a player, TV, or other component that offers them as an afterthought. We still use a BDP-103's Netflix app in our bedroom, but otherwise we've moved to Rokus (Premiere+ in the den, Express in the kitchen) and Amazon (first-gen FireStick in the guest room). From that perspective, the USB "power outlets" on the 976 and RR2160 are a handy feature that I expect will be heavily used.



Ha! If I were, I probably couldn't talk about it. I still do a little beta testing for Oppo, although the same time constraints that have kept me away from here have also curtailed my review writing pretty drastically.

Hey Gonk, great to see you here!

I, too, have been absent from this forum for a long time. Life does get in the way of things at times.

What brought me back was the email I received regarding the Labor Day weekend sales event. Also, the RR2160 is intriguing. I had considered the 2150 but ruled it out due to its lack of digital inputs/built-in dacs.

The only Outlaw product I have owned was the 1050 AVR. While it developed a bad volume control and another glitch, the amp section left a seriously positive impression on me with its robustness. My current music only setup consists of a Marantz SR6003 AVR, Adcom GFA-5500 amp, Rythmik Audio 12" sealed direct servo sub and a pair of Ascend Acoustics Sierra-2 monitor speakers. I have been thinking about replacing the Marantz with a more stereo-centric piece as it is really more for 7.1 audio.

Great to post here again after all these years!

I had to say "Welcome back" to Gonk. Your absence here made the site a place I only occasionally visit and the fact of limited posting by anyone (my self included). Funny, I too took the Marantz 7702mkII leap last fall as it seemed the waiting for Outlaw was going to be limiting and lets face it, the price was right through Outlaw. Welcome back again, glad to see you here again.

Hopefully we will see you around here more often with your words of wisdom.
This forum is a little dead.
I think everyone is waiting for the 976 to come out.

I wonder why Outlaw has not put up a pre-order site for the 976 yet?
It makes me wonder if they have run into problems with delivery????
After all the last update was January 24th.
I sureley hope not.
If they have this will probably end us from looking to buy any new processor from them and move on.

Yup. Count me in as waiting. That's a great idea, butchgo. Maybe a Black Friday pre-order deal! I'd jump on that.

They provided an update in June here in this thread. Also, near the end of the introduction section of this review of the RR2160 from August 21, he mentions that he got to listen to the "soon to be released" processor. These things all suggest it should be soon!

I was hoping that the "Secret Sale" just might have that link but no.
I am still patiently waiting but man it's getting harder and harder.
I really want to update my 990 and, thankfully, it's still working great!