Question about Sherwood Newcastle gear.

Sherwood still has the regular line; the New Castle is their higher end and supposedly better line. Kind of like Sony's ES line. When I was in the market for a new pre-amp processor I researched their New Castle line and I actually bought their SD-860 DVDP. Also, the very popular Outlaw model-990 pre-processor is essentially a rebadged New Castle with some different options, i.e. XLR's, etc. The New Castle and a built in EQ that the Outlaw doesn't have, etc.

There is much discussion about the New Castle on the Outlaw forum and if you do a search you will find many reviews for the New Castle pre-processors. The DVDP's are fairly new so not much out on them. Also, while researching I found that Sherwood actually produces almost 60% of the receivers on the market today, just rebadged with the company's brand. With this in mind, if Sherwood is that bad than so are many others. Most are made somewhere overseas these days. Usually where they have the cheapest labor available.

I sold my SD-860, but not because of performance issues. I bought it because it did all formats and after a brief experiment with DVDA I learned that I preferred SACD which my Sony ES already had and it was a better performer in this regard. However, the Sony was also almost three times as expensive. Neither machine is very good with Redbook CD's, the Sony is better with SACD, but the SD-860 actually had better video performance. Also, the New Castle is really some sharp looking equipment. I also will have to mention that the guy I sold it to was wanting to use it as a Redbook player and was very disappointed. I think it does much better with the multichannel formats which it was primarily designed for.

Just do a search on New Castle and you will find a ton of info. From everything I've read they seem to really give allot of bang for the buck. Won't compete with the really good stuff out there, but should compete very well in the main stream.

Thanks for the feedback, Jack. I'll pursue the NewCastle line further.

I guess it's like anything else, just because you had a bad reputation for years doesn't mean you can't change and do something right.

I was floored with your 'produces almost 60% of the receivers today' comment, however. Sherwood's website states 'nearly one-third', which I think is much more realistic.

Of course, the same could be said of Symphonic/Funai VCR's. Which simply means that nearly a third of the VCRs on the market are crap.

Thanks again.

-G

---------- Jack Dots> Sherwood still has the regular line; the New Castle is their higher end and

That's probably correct, I was going on memory, which isn't that good these days. Sorry about that. Still, 1/3 of all receivers on the market in considerable. And, as I said, the Outlaw 990 is a rebadged Sherwood as well and this is an extremely popular pre-processor.