Outlaw Audio working on Dolby Atmos Processor

[BaerGriggs]

From their Facebook page:

Fellow Outlaws:

With Dolby’s announcement that the Outlaws are an Atmos licensee we wanted to take this opportunity to comment on our future product plans.

From the time we first heard home Atmos over 18 months ago we knew it was something we wanted to offer. We can now confirm that we are currently hard at work on our first Atmos product, an all-new, Outlaw exclusive, high-end surround processor. This unique product is still many months away with an estimated release date late in the second quarter of 2015.

If you have been reading the online forums you are already aware that Atmos is a very complex format, particularly with regard to the firmware. While some companies have begun shipping Atmos products, a number of major brands still have “Atmos-Ready” models that are waiting for a final firmware download. In addition, content will be gradually rolled out this fall as studios get up to speed.

With product quality, performance, and reliability being the essential qualities of any Outlaw product, we are deliberately taking a measured approach with regard to development and introduction date.

As befits a true high-end Atmos processor, it will be capable of 7.2.4 and will include other key technologies such as HDMI 2.0 with HDCP 2.2 and will utilize premium, audiophile grade components throughout the design. To accommodate those features and more, this state of the art processor price will be substantially higher than the Model 975. However, we will offer special programs for owners of current Outlaw processors so that present and future owners of the Model 975 can experience its award winning performance while being assured of an attractive pathway to this new processor.

To give you a brief insight into our plans, we are already at work with our factory team and US-based hardware and software consultants on the product architecture. This advanced product is based on a new dual DSP platform, an ARM processor, and will also include streaming capabilities plus some other technologies. Designed by us and built to our specifications, it will be a flexible, but easy-to-use product that will meet and in some cases exceed the needs of the most demanding home theater enthusiast. Even at this early stage, we are confident that this new product will be unlike anything else both in terms of features and performance.

As important is it is for us to address the inevitable questions that will surface from Outlaw being listed as an Atmos licensee, please remember that we are many months ahead of shipping. Therefore, it is important that we now enter a quiet period.

Having been down this road before, we feel that this acknowledgement is the right way to give you a view into our ongoing development activity so that when we are ready to release more information it will accurately detail our schedule.

The Outlaws

This is amazing news to me, I had been looking very hard at a multichannel Outlaw amp in the next year or so. The Model 975 processor they have now seems like an amazing value but I had always wanted something with a bit more in the features department. I really hope this means they're thinking about a processor in the $1.5k-2.5k range. They actually sell high-end Marantz processors like the AV8801 in combos with their amps for a decent discount, but I'd prefer to pick up an Outlaw-branded one if possible.