The correlation I see between the release of another piece of gear which will compete with the 978 is simply that several years back, Outlaw decided to offer the Onkyo PR-SC886 as a "temporary" solution to the lack of a processor beyond the 990 so that customers would have an Outlaw supported processor to match up with an Outlaw amp. This solution has continued with various offering from Onkyo and Marantz for the last 3 years through the 997/998/978 development process. As I see it , as long as Outlaw feels the need to supply us with an alternate processor/receiver, they do not have a processor of their own on the immediate horizon. A new offering to me is a veiled update that the 978 is not in our immediate future.