My $0.02? Outlaw's products have historically hit at something of a sweet spot on the "diminishing returns" performance curve - you can get better sound quality if you pay more, but it starts becoming more about subtleties in improvement than in truly eye-popping improvements. Companies like Classe, Bryston, and Lexicon thrive on the consumers who will pay more (sometimes a lot more) to obtain those diminishing returns. Part of the cost increase is perfectly justifiable because it starts costing a lot more to achieve those gains. Part of the higher prices is inevitable because of the distribution channel they use. And yes, sometimes the higher price is because of the name on the faceplate.

A perfect example of the potential cost impact associated with achieving these improvements, taken from another Internet direct company, is OPPO Digital and the difference between the BDP-83 and BDP-83SE or the BDP-93 and BDP-95. The 83SE and 95 cost 80% or 100% more than their siblings, with the cost difference resulting solely from improving analog audio performance. The R&D costs and hardware costs required to achieve those refinements led to the higher price tags.

That being said, we can also look at OPPO Digital for proof that those "higher end" brands can sometimes get lazy and simply over-charge their customers. The Lexicon BD30 is a $3,500 Blu-ray player that Lex "assembles" in Indiana. As it turns out, they bought the internals for the player straight from OPPO's manufacturing partner, BBK, and dropped those internals - bottom chassis plate and all - into a slightly taller cabinet. The only physical changes were a different front panel, taller rear panel with different silk screening, and a different cover. Lexicon worked with OPPO to get the video performance adjusted to satisfy THX's video benchmarks, but those adjustments were made in the base player and simply carried over to the BD30. Functionally, the BD30 is a BDP-83 with a taller chassis and thicker face plate. For a price tag seven times higher than the BDP-83 and almost four times higher than the BDP-83SE, Lexicon customers got a player that performs just like a BDP-83 but doesn't get firmware updates as fast because Lexicon has to have the OPPO firmware re-packaged into their own files with their own splash screen logo. (In some cases, the delay has been months, although right now they are current with OPPO.) That means the BDP-83SE (or the newer BDP-95) represents a better product, both in customer support and performance, than the more expensive Lexicon. Just a reminder that it's sometimes important to do your homework.