this is what ive been saying. quality over quantity.

I am in for the Tuner, Phono input, & Headphone jack

Emotiva UMC-1 has a switch for MM or MC for the phono input. Don't see why Outlaw couldn't do the same???

I've got a request that shouldn't break the bank.
New remote codes for the 998.
A lot of us have 990s that will be religated to a secondary, sometimes connected, system when the 998 comes out. It would be nice to be able to have one set of codes for the 990 and another set for the 998 so we don't keep activating one when we're trying to instruct the other.

An easy to navigate menu system and an overlay (HDMI) for running information such as volume ect. The small display is an issue for some of us who are getting older.

no its just a problem. unless your very close its hard to read.

A web GUI would be nice to configure each source and input, a rack mount bracket would be nice, an aluminum volume knob would be nice (something that has the feel of a denon receiver) and come through with HDMI 1.4 compliance. Leave the streaming crap out of it that will just complicate things, especially since boxee box will be coming out soon for $200 and trump anything that outlaw could design in a reasonable amount of time. http://www.boxee.tv/box

What about on On Screen Display ("OSD") that overlay's the current video source like a heads up display in an aircraft such that you can still see the video source as well as the ghost graphics? My 990 is in a cabinet, and even with the cabinet door open, it is too far away for practical use. And, the current 990 OSD only works when you switch TV input sources and then activate the OSD. Therefore, any time I want to check settings (including whether my Zone 2 is on), I have to get up and walk over to the 990. Why can't there be an option that allows overlaying ghost graphics onto the current video source for a couple seconds upon switching sources and inputs or upon toggling a button? From a layman's perspective, it seems like this would be a simple thing to provide in the 998 if the 998 is doing the video switching--it could just interject the graphics when necessary.

On a similar note, please make the secondary zone display graphics in the 998 work independently from the rest of the display. I shouldn't have to activate the normal display (like turning the volume up) simply to know if my secondary zone is on and activiated and piping music to a remote location in my house.

Ed.

A decent phono preamp.
Source direct/bypass mode switchable from the remote for BOTH stereo and multichannel analog sources.
Analog SQ needs to be a clear step up from the Integra/Onkyo -- which is really the only dig against them.

And PLEASE lose the 2150 look! The look of the 990, 970 and the amps all match. That is a much better idea.

I could go either way, ha! But really I'm in the camp where I wouldn't mind them removing it if they came out with a separate tuner that worked with all radio, hd radio, satellite, net streaming etc.

So if outlaw came out with a separate that tuned in all sorts of different types of music from different mediums, then I'd buy it. One of the features I'd like to see is being able to have a tuner that allowed you to store stations in one location for the different mediums. So when I switch to the next preset I may hit my satellite or net radio station or hd radio station. That would be ideal, but probably not realistic. Not that it couldn't be done, but I haven't seen anyone do it. In this scenario I wouldn't need a built in tuner, but that doesn't necessarily bode well for others.