I think difficulties with implementing Trinnov at less than stratospheric pricing is the major hurdle to the 998. I was looking forward to Trinnov implementation more than 3D capable HDMI. I imagine that a direct comparison between the 990 and the 978 in my audio environment will be needed before I could say the spending is justified. While I doubt it, I’m keeping an open ear. But this comes from someone already ‘sold’ on Outlaw.

When thinking about pre/pro customers new to Outlaw, virtually none would say, “What, it doesn’t have Trinnov?” On the other hand, many contemplating a move away from the big-box mass-market would be put off if 3D were not included.

In an earlier post I did say I was ‘sold’ on 3D, and, in theory, I still am. But, in my view, 3D needs several things to be seen in a highly effective way versus just ‘the next thing’ in a sales-marketing scenario that is always looking for something new to sell. Ads that show birds, butterflies and other items flying out into the room are misleading in that the 3D effect is only seen in the rectangular cone between each viewer’s eyes and the borders of the display being viewed, just as 2D objects are not seen beyond these borders. Any ad showing objects being viewed outside of the borders is, in effect, false advertising. Anyone want to join a class action suit? Anyway, I think that unless a 3D scene can fill either half or more of a viewer’s field of vision, or the great majority of the viewer’s conscious visual attention area, 3D within a ‘boxed tunnel’ is only a borderline gimmick.

Because a 3D signal can go from player to display without involving the pre/pro, I don’t see 3D capable HDMI in a pre/pro as an enticement for me. I chose to run different HDMI sources directly to my display, rather than switching beforehand, because my display allows for custom settings associated with each input. If all my sources are switched before the display, the display would need another way to determine what source originated the signal arriving at the one input I was using on the display.

So, while I think the 978 may be good for Outlaw, and think that’s a good thing overall, the waning of my personal enthusiasm for the 978 due to the lack of Trinnov is not turned around by the presence of 3D HDMI. If the 978 makes it into my system to stay, it will have to be on the merits of audio performance strikingly better than the 990.