I looked at Denon's website briefly, and the display on the Model 998 front panel concept does look very similar to the Denon front panels. That does suggest some shared resources somewhere on the design side, even if only in who they are sourcing displays from. It's a nice concept for front panel display, with two lines of text and some helpful graphical indicators on input and output channels that can actually be understood from a distance. From that perspective, I'd say it's a good place to start if you are looking for a front panel display that is more than just a couple lines of text. The volume indicator even looks like it's a decent size - unlike the indicator on my Onkyo 885, which I suspect Onkyo could only have made smaller if built it from individual DLP mirrors. The rest of the front panel layout is certainly different from Denon's stuff, of course, being an homage of sorts to the RR2150.


But the 998's not being done in partnership with Inkel. They have somebody different involved now that the 997's been dropped.