A friend of mine was at the house today and was remarking on the quality of my HT setup. She asked about Outlaw and I showed her the website and we began a discussion about the various components for sale there.

After 20 minutes or so her comment was "So all this stuff seems to be rebranded equipment from other companies. What original equipment do they manufacture?" I commented that the service was good and that many people are willing to pay a premium for that, but that she was correct in that Outlaw doesn't really create their own product. She followed up with "Isn't most of this stuff pretty much disposable after a few years since the pace of change in the audio world is pretty brisk?" And then she cited the various audio formats for movies which seem to be in a never-ending state of change. I agreed that having the latest HT setup was a quickly moving and somewhat expensive target.

Her take away was that in the absence of anything truly unique, she'd be inclined to just buy based on features and price from a "name brand" online or at a big box store. Based on that, she did a quick comparison shop in front of me at the online shop for a big retailer and concluded that Outlaw was comparatively VERY expensive for similar gear. Other than the "but they're great when you need service" argument, it was hard to disagree.

What would you guys and gals counter that with? If you ran Outlaw, how would you fix this (if indeed you think it needs fixing)?

Best,