- Joined
- Jul 3, 1997
- Messages
- 7,061
I was recently surfing over at the Outlaw Saloon and discovered a post that appears to address many of the issues that have been brought up here in the last couple of months. Outlaw chooses not to post on the forums and I understand their reluctance for a variety of reasons. (They even mention this in the message below). However, I feel that the words they wrote are important (and not because there are some kind words for the beta testers). So I'm going to take the opportunity to post their thoughts here for all to see.
If you wish to direct some comments to the Outlaws directly please go HERE which is at the Outlaw site and the thread involved. Otherwise you will not be speaking to them directly since they don't participate actively on forums other than their own, which is their perogative.
I'm not discouraging discussion here regarding this (in fact I'm encouraging it). However, don't ask a question here that can only be answered by the Outlaws since you will only be directed to the Outlaw site. Other comments that do not require a direct response from The Outlaws are fine.
Here's the text of the message:
If you wish to direct some comments to the Outlaws directly please go HERE which is at the Outlaw site and the thread involved. Otherwise you will not be speaking to them directly since they don't participate actively on forums other than their own, which is their perogative.
I'm not discouraging discussion here regarding this (in fact I'm encouraging it). However, don't ask a question here that can only be answered by the Outlaws since you will only be directed to the Outlaw site. Other comments that do not require a direct response from The Outlaws are fine.
Here's the text of the message:
To all,
We have been reading certain threads about bashing the Outlaws and are appreciative of the support that you are giving us. We have taken more heat, in accusations and insinuations, over the past few weeks than ever before in the history of the company. (Internally, we have coined a new term: Innsinuendo.) As a long-standing policy, we absolutely refuse to post on Home Theater Forum, but here on our own turf we feel a little more comfortable about speaking our mind. That said...
1) We are not stupid. While we may have misjudged the completion of this product, we would not purposely try to harm our credibility, which has taken three years of hard work to build.
2) When we set our goals for the 950 we knew that we would be going up against some very well respected "players". We admire these companies for their integrity and commitment to excellence. Quite frankly, our goal has been to aspire to the same level of audible performance. We believe the
reports from the Beta Testers are fairly strong evidence that we will achieve this goal.
3) Launching a successful audio product means two things: a. Getting the best possible audible performance, and b. making as few mistakes as possible. (In this case, software.)
4) With over 100 man years experience, we Outlaws must admit, the 950 has been the most complicated product we have ever developed. Not only are we attempting to deliver state of the art performance (you will be the judge of that), but we have had to integrate two circuits never used before; Cirrus Extra Surround, and the Triple Crossover, the latter being jointly developed by Outlaw and Cirrus Logic. In addition, we are the first company to offer a non-THX surround processor with Dolby Surround EX. Finally, we had to modify our Cirrus Logic decoding algorithm to ensure it will play any new EX flag enabled software such as JP III and Atlantis. Long story short, and straight from the horses mouth, we were too optimistic about scheduling with this product. That will never happen again.
One more point. This is a small industry. We know where our competitors are getting their platforms, we know what those platforms cost. We are also aware of the time frame for their "upgrades" to say nothing of what they will cost. We will let each of those companies speak for themselves but, suffice it to say, we are extremely happy with what we are about to offer at $899.
5) Beta Testers. To a person, all of them have been fantastic. They have isolated and identified several glitches we missed and their comments have helped us to refine the performance of this unit. You might ask, "Why did we not catch these glitches ourselves?". The answer; no two setups are exactly alike. With the wide variety of speaker sources, units, etc., things crop up that we could not have caught ourselves. We offer our sincerest thanks to all of them.
6) New Product Announcements: Well, as many of you have guessed, there will be a lot less of them until we are very close to production. While we wish it could be otherwise, there are just too many risks in a relatively open environment. Case in point; the 755. We held the announcement of this product until it was ready for production. (Incidentally, there appears to be little feedback on what we consider a breakthrough price performance ratio. After our announcement, the only comment we got on HTF was our typo of calling our DC trigger an AC trigger.)
Going forward (by necessity), we will be forced to release less, not more, information about future product developments. While we wish it were otherwise, bringing consumers along in our product development process is just too risky.
Finally, we want to thank you, our extended Outlaw Family members. We promise, to the best of our ability to continue to offer you quality products at reasonable prices. Furthermore, we promise you the best customer service in the industry - period. As our wives constantly remind us, we are not, nor will we ever be perfect. Except of course when it comes to making A/V equipment decisions...
Regards,
Scott