Ritz2, I don't understand the first part of your above statement. What other audio company are you aware of that has as good of service for a better price? How much more cost sensitive can you get? At the time of their introduction each of the Outlaw products were pretty "bleeding edge". I feel this anti-hype about not being "bleeding edge" is a holdover from Outlaws refusal to incorporate a half-baked HDMI output into their product line. They don't have the resources of Denon/Onkyo/Yamaha/Sony to bring out seven different versions of the same pre-pro or receiver spread across multiple price points just to gain market share. What they do have is a group of engineers who think the product through and make decision based on current technology and what is likely to be usable in the next 5 years. How many of us have a 990 which is completely compatible with our displays and sources, 5 years after its debut. Except for more wires, the lack of HDMI barely affects the 990 or the 970 since they have analog inputs.