Setup and Capability Questions

I am going to upgrade my home office listening experience. My primary goal is great audio while working from my desk. I have a pair of Sonus Faber Electa speakers that I'll be using in a near field listening position. My main source will be a Mac Mini that has has several thousand CDs that I ripped using a lossless format. I may or may not add a subwoofer at some point but right now I'm going with just the 2 speakers. I had thought about getting a DAC and an amp to do all this, but the RR2150 seems like a better solution. OK, so here are some of my questions:

1) First does the USB input support UAC2? I would think so but I don't see it listed anywhere.
2) I'll be placing the unit on a shelf, how much space does it need above the unit for proper cooling?
3) I intend to bi-amp my SF speakers using the A+B outputs, these are 8 ohm speakers so I should be all right. But it does bring hop some setup questions.
4) If I run the tweeters off the A side, can I use the Bass management setting at its max (100Hz) to minimize the low freq. signal being sent to the tweeter? And if I understand it correctly I'd still get full signal to the B side which would be driving my mid/bass speaker. Is this valid? Am I missing something?
5) I typically don't use tone controls, but I am curious do the tone controls only apply to the A speakers (like bass management) or do the effect both A+B speakers? I would guess both, but its not clear since the Bass Management only apples to the A side.
6) Also, there is a "Speaker Eq." setting that I'm not sure of its function. Assuming that it applies to both A+B speakers, if I have the Bass Management set to 100 to trim the low end going to my tweeters, could I then use the "Speaker Eq." to boost the low end on the B side that drives my mid/bass speaker?
7) At some point if I decide to add a sub (probably the M8), my thought would be to use the crossover on the sub instead of the RR2150 bass management. Keeping the configuration as described above the same, I would take the output of the B side to the sub's "Speaker Inputs" use its crossover circuits and then take the "Speaker Outputs" of the M8 back to the mid/bass side of my speakers. I can't think of any issues with doing this, can you?
8) This is a M8 question relative to my previous question. I understand that the "Crossover Frequency" adjustment provides a low pass filter to the amp that drives the sub, but does it also provide a high pass filter to the "Speaker Outputs"?
9) One last question, again not really related to the RR2150, I'm currently using iTunes for my player (yea, I know it's kind of lame, but it was easy and free!). Does anybody have any recommendations for a better player. My main goal is best sound quality, but it does need to be user friendly, i.e. I'm not interested in some bit nibbler's command line interface software. Oh yea, it has to run on a Mac Mini running OSx 10.9.5.

Thank You in advance to any and all who respond.

Regards,
Mark

1) Call Outlaw
2) A couple of inches of space above the 2150 is sufficient for cooling.
3) The nominal impedance of your speakers is based on the entire circuit being intact. If you bi-amp the actual impedance of the individual drivers could be less than 8 ohms.
4) You might want to call Outlaw for specifics. The bass management system for the sub-out only applies to the "A" speakers but your tweeters are not going to like a signal that starts at 100hz as they typically are ranged above 2000hz or so and do you want to send all the high frequency signal to the "B" speakers which also are not designed for it.
5) Tone controls should apply to both sets of speakers.
6) The bass management is for use of a sub only with the "A" set of speakers. If you apply the filter without a sub connected you may lose the low frequency signal somewhat. The 2150 may sense when a sub is connected like most systems do and eliminate the filter circuit is a sub is not connected.
9) In general if you can get the players signal directly to the 2150s USB input you will be using the DAC in the 2150 which is what you paid for rather than the DAC of the iPOD or other device.

XeonMan, Thank you for your response.

One thing I should clarify, I am not Bi-Amping at the lowest level, i.e.direct connection to the drivers. My speakers are equipped with dual sets of terminals. Therefore, I would not be eliminating the internal passive crossover network. In theory, the individual impedances of the two inputs would have to be greater 8 ohms each since when they are not being bi-amped they're being run in parallel. But, I'm not certain what they're values would be. My efforts in adjusting the RR2150 bass management cross over and/or tone controls is more to adjust what is going to the amps rather than the speakers since the passive crossovers would still be there to do their job. My idea was to remove the load from that individual amp. This whole process could just be "mental masturbation" and might result in little to no actually discernible difference. It seems if I really want to try my idea of active crossover in front of the amps with passive crossovers still in the speaker, my better route would be to use a DAC, external active crossover, and discrete power amps. If I do go that route I'll probably go with the Emotiva DC-1 and a pair of their mini-X a-100 amps. I can get a good 2 channel active crossover for about $100 so that investment is not that substantial.

I am wondering if it is worth it for your home office. It seems way complicated and expensive for what will likely be a background type of sound system. It you routinely crank it up in your office then maybe the extra effort will be discernible but if its for just easy listening I would steer away from the esoteric'

Well I just got back from doing some testing on bi-amping my speakers. A friend of mine has a studio with tons of equipment so we had all the toys needed for the test. I won't go into all the different configurations, but suffice to say we tried quite a few. The bottom line, when things were right there was no real discernible difference between any of the configurations and just a straight single amp connection with both sets of terminals jumper'ed together, with the exception of one configuration that made things REALLY BAD. I will say that these SF Electas are really sweet in near field listening. The experience is quite different. It's very much like headphones, but you have a real sense of sound stage.

BTW, I intend on doing some critical listening from my office. I live alone and work from home, so there is none to complain if I crank it up!

So after talking with the the Outlaw folks I learned that the RR2150 really isn't a fit for me. It turns out that the USB input on that system does not support true UAC2. I have almost a 1/2 TB of hi-resolution files and that portion of my library is going to continue to grow, so I need something that can support UAC2. I have decided to go the Emo route with the Stealth DC-1 which is essentially a no frills processor with a reasonably good DAC. It, also, has a Head Phone amp, but thats not my thing at all. I'm going with the UPA-200 for the amp. It's a 2channel with 125W/channel, which gives me good headroom for the SF Electas. I really wish Outlaw had a solution that fit my needs. I've always liked the company and the customer service is great.

Thanks for your input.

I am confused by the UAC2 input. Is this the windows User Account Control? How does it affect the output of the server device you are using? Does it prevent access to the files somehow if your server is connected to a non protected device? I have several win7 computers and have connected them to the 990 through the USB which is an old version of USB and have had no issues playing my files.

No, UAC2 is a driver the supports hi resolution audio through USB 2.0 (and above) ports. This is the driver that allows your USB port to connect to a sound device (typically a DAC or Processor's DAC) and thus produce sound through an external device. Prior to UAC2 the audio outputted through USB only supported standard (Redbook) CD quality. Now with UACs you can easily send 24/192 and DSD64 signals. In fact I believe (although I don't know how much media is available) there is now 32/384 and DSD128 support through a USB 2.0 port using UAC2.

OK, that was the long answer, short answer, UAC2 allows hi resolution audio signals to be played through a USB 2.0 port.

Since the UAC2 driver is to allow Windows computers to pass higher than redbook quality files, why does the 2150 USB input have to comply? Once the data comes out of your computer doesn't the DAC in the 2150 just convert to an analog signal?

Two things your missing, the USB port on the RR2150 has to be able to communicate at that level and the DAC has to be able to handle the designated bit rate. This unit was designed prior to a lot of the newer formats. Albeit a USB 2.0 port is capable of the data transfer rates needed its the level code internal to the RR2150, remember both ends have to be speaking the same language. But even if they did a FW update for the USB port the DAC simply isn't capable of handling the higher bit rates,

For the cost of the crossovers you talked about you could drop in a DAC in front of the RR2150 and eliminate the USB/DAC standard issues all together. Computer to the DAC using the analogue out from the DAC to whichever pair of RCA inputs on the back of the RR2150 provides the closest impedance match to the analogue output from the DAC. At that point the RR2150 becomes a pass thru device for any signal it receives.

I don't understand the limitation Mark is talking about - or that he got from Outlaw advisers. I have Windows 7 desktop and Outlaw 2150 hooked up via USB. It has no trouble playing the highest res. files from HD tracks.

Is the presumed problem that the 2150 won't process a high res USB signal at all, or it won't process it to the level that the resolution of the file is capable of?

mdrconsult is correct. Think of the USB input as a DAC which is capable of CD quality sound. While you have the possibility of feeding it hi-res files, extra bit depth or sampling rates will not be reproduced.

Is the usb on the 2150 2.0 compliant?

Yes, the USB on the RR2150 is compliant with the USB2.0 full speed specification but is not UAC 2.