The Outlaw 990 is based on the Sherwood-Newcastle P-965. I have another pre/pro based on the same Sherwood-Newcastle engine, the Boston Acoustics AVP7 and I like it a whole lot. I have had it for nearly three years and it is rock-solid reliable. Its DACs and upsampling are very good, easy on the ears, and it has a nice sense of ease about it. I can't speak to whether the Anthem is as good or better, but the Sherwood P-965 got rave reviews all around the world and set the bar so high for an affordable high end pre/pro that Outlaw decided to tweak it for their market rather than design their own.
Outlaw added balanced inputs and outputs and 3 DVI in/one out to the design. So you can use the Outlaw for HDMI switching by using adapter cables. It also has 7.1 analog inputs, so if you get a Blu-ray player with internal processing and 5.1 or 7.1 analog outputs you can get hi-def video switching and lossless surround with the Outlaw 990.
Plus, with their blowout price you get a new unit with transferable 5-year warranty for $699. The Sherwood/Boston/Outlaw unit has excellent digital upsampling and decoding, and a very smooth and organic sound especially at its price. I have no intention of upgrading for a long, long time.
