The facts that gonk laid out match my reollection of previous Outlaw offerings and it is not unlike what happened in the post WWII era when various smaller American consuer electronics manufacturing concerns were sprouting up. Some of these were firms that had successfully made the transition from selling radios to consumers prior to the war, through the era of dedicating resources to military needs and finally getting on board with the "next new thing" of TV. Probably the most famous / long-lived such firm is Curtis-Mathes. Many of the "classic" hi-fi brand names had similar periods of "turmoil" in how they sourced production... The proliferation of oddly "branded" flat panel TVs of generally mediocre quality / performance seems to be the new darling of SE Asian electronics manufacturing. I really wonder what happened to the folks that certainly had the skills to design / build / market quality products in the era of higher end CRTs and such that once flowed from Japan and other higher wage Asian countries.

I don't think there is anything nefarious about Outlaw's decision to only hint at which competitor forced its manufacturing partner to "knife the baby". The benefit to Outlaw in publicly disclosing such info is nil. For those that were eagerly awaiting the 978's availability the knowledge that another firm may offer a similarly equipped product would send some buyers to that competitor. Further inflamming the notoriusly difficult competitive environement by taking a feud into the eye of the public would be a very risky and a shabby way to conduct one's relationships in a world of shifting alliances...

Are there firms with employees that coud have dodged these pitfalls? Maybe, but as I said earlier, folks seem to forget that even contracts negiotiated between giants in the US micro-electronics world like IBM and Motorola come to unexpected ends; when Apple put an end to the previously negotiated "cloning" of PowerPC based machines it essentially drove Motorola out of the personal computer business and caused the demise of several smaller firms that were both innovative and had many loyal customers. The degree to which this radical shift in strategy was successfully handled by the team that Steve Jobs brought back to Apple is largely the foundation for the firm's current success. If some such shift was instigated by D+M (maybe to ensure the survival of McIntosh more than allowing the creation of an AV70007...) then really there are bigger things to worry about. Does anyone really want to see McIntosh go the way of the IBM's personal computer business, as a division of a firm like Lenovo???


When it comes to the hows and whys of the pricing of US ASSEMBLED audio equipment I think there is a misconception that ONLY "cost no object" brands can be marketed in such a manner. This is false, the decision for esoteric dreamers to price their products like exotic automobiles is a function of their own out-dated fantasies. Market realities are far different. The printed circuit boards and bits like capacitors, resistors, stock ICs and various transistors can be put together here for about the same price as elsewhere. (there are analysts that have verified this is NOT where the cost savings in products like the iPhone come from) Further evidence of this is in the fair number of musical instruent amps and even small scale manufacturers that can sell DACs , tube and even IC two channel (or amp only) products at a competitive prices. Similarly the consensus of most folks that need to hire people with expertise in the kinds of software level design / integration that has to happen for products with licensed DSPs, advanced user interfaces / OSD is that cost savings in these areas are minimal -- any decreased personel costs are offset by the longer development cycle and overrall steeper learning curve. While there are signficant differences in the total "line assembly" costs needing huge facilities and massive logistical support, this is largely offset by the fact that most US based audio firms have so small a volume that the mass scale effects are not significant.

What can be done to get a real product into the hands of consumers that want a great product at a price that tag that does not look like a Buggatti Veryon of audio?? I suspect that with a bit of "bush beating" (ideally through message boards / internet forums , especiallly of those that are advancing the "Maker community" / Arduino...) an appropriately skilled cadre of people could be aggregated to ensure that no one firm would have the power to sink a project. Maybe instead of Outlaw trying to find a more "reliable" manufacturing partner they ought to rethnk their role, let me give an example: In my area (suburbs of Chicago) there are some active "mass builders" that develop large tracts of homes and market them, these mass builders use a variety of labor some of which is from employees, other from independent skilled carpenters / roofers, as well as a range of subcontractoring firms that provide specialized skills / materials like excavation and concrete. There are also many smaller "builders" that largely just market more of a 'custom' home. Most such firms are little more than a "supervisory general contractor" who subcontracts out ALL the actual construction AND the design / engineering. Of course there are also independant general contractors that really just do renovation / additions to woner's specification that compete with more integrated firms marketing "one stop shoppng" for having your kitchen or bath overhauled to achieve some "dream look". Finally there are tradespeople that work for themselves generally getting only a portion of work for any job. In CE it looks like the old school "mass builder" model is dead. The current model seems to have skipped over a couple of iterations of having independant "design professionals" and perhaps getting back to something that is a little more focused on "craftsmen" ( or using ethical partners in perhaps Japan???) will solve some issues, especially given the shrinking market for any quality audio equipment. Honestly to borrow from another "production model" that is common among automotive hobbyists maybe if small firm "pre-pros" were built like a "run" of reproduction headers or similar new cast / plated body parts to restore one's classic car (and maybe that was the 990 model, but lack of communication was the only pitfall) the "dead ends" of the 998 / 978 could be avoided. I think I would be OK laying doing a deposit to reserve my "one of 1500" or whatever the "parts in inventory" production run would have to be to fit the model of getting headers for a muscle car...

Then again I might be nuts and maybe the complexity of today's consumer electronics and the ruthlessness of the marketplace are incompatible with delivering value and quality but at this point I sure think some new approaches are worth trying...