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?
Too much coffee today??? I said their service was good. I also said their prices are higher than similar products offered by competitors (Emotiva comes to mind). Some people are willing to pay more for that extra bit of service and some are not. That is all I'm saying.
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.
Spare me. Half baked? HDMI has been a fact of life for years now and was already appearing in consumer gear when the 990 was released (moreso when the 970 was released). If Outlaw's release cycle for a flagship processor is going to be every 5-6 years, then they'll need to be a little bit more on the ball and forward thinking about key design decisions of this nature.
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.
That much is quite clear. If you don't have the resources of your competition, you need to be a bit more forward thinking about your product mix. Use your brains, not your muscle.
Except for more wires, the lack of HDMI barely affects the 990 or the 970 since they have analog inputs.
Is this a joke? Lack of HDMI completely removes the 990 from any serious consideration for a theater system and that's been the case for a couple of years. If it wasn't, Outlaw wouldn't be reselling Onkyo's processor while they wait helplessly for Sherwood to deliver a usable plaform for the 997.
Lastly, there hasn't been anything I'd classify as innovative offered in the Outlaw store in a couple of years that's been anything more than a repackaging of someone else's product. Without any stand-out product to fall back on, that leaves them with only price and service to differentiate themselves. They're doing that with their service, for sure, but I wouldn't classify Outlaw's prices these days as particularly competitive. Combine all of the above and you've got the current situation where the bulk of the posts on these forums are from members who have owned the gear for years and very little interest from new customers.
Best,
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