It is a failure of the manufacturers to use HDMI parts that actually have code embedded in them that do all the functionality of the specs. in question irrespective of the mess that is HDMI. If it is an HDMI 1.3 chipset (receiving or transmitter side) it should be able to do audo bitstreaming, DSD bitstreaming, auto A/V synch, DeepColor and xvYCC support, etc. The manufacturers shouldn't be able to just willy nilly pick and choose the options and only state it has version HDMI xx as the consumer's only guide.

I wouldn't mind if Outlaw took that $1,600 and with their more direct to the consumer selling model add better "hand picked" parts like much better capacitors, op amps, circuit boards, power supplies, etc.

As to the DTC-9.8 I have seen a preliminary specs. sheet that touches on the features I mentioned before. I would hope Outlaw uses either these top of the line Burr-Brown PCM/DSD DAC's or the top end Wolfsen PCM/DSD DAC's rather than those used before in their previous products.

Also, pure direct DSD compatibility via HDMI would be awesome! There seemingly are HDMI 1.2 and later universal players coming that can send the decompressed DSD bitstream from SA-CD's to outboard processors which can accept DSD data.

Dan