Hello Outlaws!

I'm thrilled to hear the news (as of October 4, 2017) that production is about to begin on the 976. However, I saw no word in that announcement about the Atmos/DTS-X processor.

According to the update from January 2017, "As soon as production starts on the Model 976, our engineering teams will redouble their efforts on our Atmos/DTS-X processor. As mentioned, it is based on the same underlying platform as the Model 976, but utilizes two DSPs and additional DACs for a 7.2.4 channel configuration. It will add additional connectivity options and a few other features that many of you have asked for."

Can anyone (Outlaw Ben? PeterT) as to the current state of this prior claim -- does it still hold true? Will efforts be focusing back on this processor?

Oh, and by any chance will it have stereo XLR inputs? A man can dream (specifically, a man can dream of getting an Oppo UDP-205 and mating it to an Outlaw processor).

Still loving my 990, of course, so no hurry. ;-)

Thanks!

I know you Outlaws are close to the vest on release dates, but are you still at least planning on making the Atmos/DTS-X processor?

Still wondering -- any updates? Thanks!!!

Hmm... Now that you mention it, I don't think we got the annual January update this year.

I was wondering the same thing. Hope they haven’t ran into any problems.

Hello Outlaws -- can you provide any update, or at least confirm that this product is still on a development roadmap? Thanks!

Wonder if this product is still going to be released? Been quite a while since an
update. I know I’m interested in hearing what it’s status might be.
Jeff

I am guessing they are not going to say anything until they have a pretty definite ship date.
If you start hinting at a possible release date people will start pounding them if they don't meet that exact date.
I, for one, will wait patiently until it is released.
Just hope my 990 keeps on ticking!!!!

Personally I think it is dead in the water. There are too many cheaper units available from too many different manufacturers for this as yet un-named product to compete. Peter should give us some news or just tell us to move on.

I hope not.
I passed on the 976 simply because of not being able to rename inputs.
If push comes to shove and Outlaw doesn't release something in the next 6 months then I will go for the next generation Emotiva processor because it should be out well before that and the bugs should be worked out of it.

Emotiva looks sweet....price not being a factor!

Looks like Monoprice has tapped into the market segment / supply chain that formerly was exclusive to Outlaw --
https://www.soundandvision.com/content/monoprice-turns-volume-new-av-gear

"...announcement of an audiophile-focused 16-channel home theater processor... Monolith HTP-1, which is slated to ship in the fall at $4,000, will handle Dolby Atmos and DTS surround-sound processing and offer onboard Dirac Live automated room correction."

Sounds like the Trinnov Altitude16 is pretty much what is in their crosshairs -- https://hometheaterreview.com/trinnov-altitude16-home-theater-preampoptimizer-reviewed/ Leaves $13k in your pocket so you can afford appropriate number of speakers and amps...

So the end of January is coming up. Any chance we'll be getting an update on that new flagship processor? A lot of folks are curious if it's even still in the works. I bet we'd all like hear something, really anything, about it. Is it still happening? Are there lengthy delays still pushing the release date out to an unknown future? What's happening with this thing back at the ranch?

Still patiently waiting but it's getting harder by the month........
Starting to think very very seriously about the next generation of the Emotiva XMC-1.
The RMC-1 is way above my pay grade!!!!
So it would be nice it they would just give us a little bit of an update of some sort.
Anything.

It seems pretty clear that the ATI acquisition of DataSat helped along the recently announced Monolith HTP-1 with Atmos and Dirac Live. The feature set and pricing really are quite attractive and potentially disruptive. Clearly the main target is Emotiva, https://emotiva.com/collections/home-theater/products/rmc-1 , but the whole landscape is really worth an overview.

The other options in the higher end space are clustered into a couple of sets. For folks with no desire to look at Atmos the Nuforce option compared well to Outlaw offering.

For folks who do desire a higher end Atmos prepro the value leader today looks like Onkyo, which is now being discounted heavily -- https://www.abt.com/product/123271/Onkyo-11.2-Channel-Black-Network-A-V-Controller-PRRZ5100.html That is less than similar offerings from sister brand Integra, and below other competitors like Marantz or Yamaha.

The next tier probably includes -- https://www.crutchfield.com/p_973AVM60/Anthem-AVM-60.html https://www.crutchfield.com/p_410AV860B/Arcam-AV860.html and https://www.crutchfield.com/p_745M17V2/NAD-M17-V2.html

The more esoteric offerings include https://hometheaterreview.com/audiocontrol-maestro-m9-home-theater-processor-reviewed/ and it's somewhat less costly sibling -- https://hometheaterreview.com/audiocontrol-introduces-maestro-m5-processor/ as well as the much more costly offerings from even harder to find brands -- https://www.audioadvice.com/content/lexicon-mc10-home-theater-processor-review/ https://www.mcintoshlabs.com/products/home-theater-processors/MX122 https://www.soundandvision.com/content/trinnov-pre-pro-renders-16-channels https://www.amazon.com/Lyngdorf-balanced-Processor-RoomPerfect-Correction/dp/B0751T6PL2/

From a business perspective the space does not seem to have many attractive places to profitably offer alternatives.

It is very interesting that with many of the firms that were once more independent / publicly traded now part of private equity groups there are different strategic directions that pursued. I remember a few years back I saw some rather slick media server / home automation gear that was developed by the EVA Automation folks and branded under the Bowers & Wilkins name. That stuff never saw full production and I have to think a big part of that was because the likely channel for it, places like the Magnolia stores at Best Buy, had to tell the inventors just how few of the really cool Kalediscape Strato boxes ever get bought https://hometheaterreview.com/kaleidescape-strato-4k-movie-player-reviewed/?page=2

My gut says that with all the interesting "problem solving devices" that head Outlaw P.T. continues to offer to the custom integration market, http://www.transformativeengineering.com/products/, he gets excellent feedback as to the sorts of requests potential customers have for a new pre-pro and he won't offer something that does not have great likelihood of marketplace success. A "me too" product does not seem to fit with the Outlaw model...

Nice synopsis.
Looking at the offerings I see two main groupings:

High functionality-Low performance-Low price
High functionality-High performance-High price
Of course there's the outrageous price category also.

Outlaw, imho, aims for:
Mid functionality-High performance-Mid price
Which is really an interesting exercise in price vs performance.

Obviously it works for them.

I think there's room in the segment, but not sure about another me too product. I like what Shiit has done by allowing you to buy piece by piece and build a system, but that's for 2 channel and headphones. However miniDSP has their dirac unit which is nice and I can see something more modular with smaller units then these big ass AVR's and processors that are replaced year after year. Of course Emovtiva has their modular RMC-1, but I worry about installing the modules and future flexibility, plus the initial outlay is fairly large.

I think something like this would need to be software based OS with an ARM processor and DSP chips or something, but this is me just fantasizing.