I told BossoBass I'd write this up.

Like many people, I bought this unit because I wanted a universal multichannel audio player for DVD-A and SACD. The video is secondary to me. There's a thread going on over at AVS that speaks of bass management issues. I thought I understood bass management but my experiments over the last few days have left me scratching my head.

I will gladly say that the 2900 is performing very well with my 950, 755 and M&K speaker setup. I sat down last night and listened to Dark Side of the Moon in multichannel from beginning to end. I'm a casual Floyd fan so the new mix does not offend any hardcore traditionalist sensitivities . It is a great experience hearing this recording in high rez format.

I also played several DVD-As that I have and the sound is improved in terms of clarity and fullness over the JVC player I had been using. I have two AIX Records releases, Peter D'Agostino and Chopin Four Ballades (sp?), and these sound fantastic. D'Agostino is acoustic guitar with percussion and the dynamic range is outstanding. The recording truly catches the musical dynamics of the musicians and my system is reproducing them so well now that it makes me want to practice. The piano recording is also well done and sounds great with this player. I'm looking forward to getting the "Celebrating the Music of Weather Report" SACD that BossoBass has recommended.

I'm still trying to figure out the bass management thing. It's not just the 2900 but also how it interacts with the 950. I get plenty of bass, sometimes too much. I just don't know what's correct. A lot of it is because the recordings are all mixed differently. For example, "Dreams" on Fleetwood Mac, Rumors DVD-A has oodles of bass. With the Denon in the system and "calibrated", it's too much bass. I compensate by turning down the sub if the recording is too hot.

The setup that works best for me is to have the BM in the Denon off and the 950's analog bass management switch on. When calibrating the Denon speaker level output, I turn the sub off when measuring and adjusting the five main speakers. This is probably wrong but it compensates for the 950's redirect of bass to the sub from the other channels. Despite the calibration difficulty, the playback response is very good and maybe a little "bass heavy". I'm still tinkering.

One of the things that has me scratching my head is the subwoofer on/off setting in the Denon. Using the Avia calibration disc, I'm trying to determine if the unit reacts properly to the LFE signal. I want to know if I set the sub setting to "no" that the LFE is redirected to the Mains if they are set to large. To my surprise, the answer appears to be "no". With the Denon, I set the speakers to Large and the Sub to no and feed it through the 6 channel direct input on the 950. There is an LFE-only frequency sweep on the Avia disc that I played and I got no sound at all. I was bummed because I'll be setting up stereo subs as soon as my second one arrives and without that functionality in the Denon, they may be setup as dual mono.

Ignorance is bliss though because when I sit back and just listen, the system with the Denon sounds great and it's a real pleasure. I'm very curious about what's going on with the BM but it isn't causing me any listening distress. The unit is a keeper for me because it plays both audio formats very well and is a decent DVD-V player. It also has me thinking that I have to study up on BM a little more. I love research.

[This message has been edited by DollarBill (edited May 09, 2003).]

DB: glad to hear about the 2900. some thoughts:

is your avia disc a dvd-a or dvd test disc? if it's dvd, you may have to be in a digital mode in the 950 to hear the sweep. also, i don't think any player has BM for sacd (i could be wrong).

if your set-up disc has phase tests, see if your phase is doing a 180 degree shift when in 6 channel bypass mode.

calibrate your sub's level to EXACTLY the level of the other speakers...don't run the sub 'hot'.

i know that you know the following, but as dvd-a/sacd 'places' insruments in any particular point in the 'circle', sometimes for the entire cut, placement, angle, phase and levels are more critical than for movie sound.

tweak your speaker placement with a tape measure to place them as close to equal distance from the listening position as possible and apart (FL-to-C the same as FR-C, etc.).

tweak the angle of toe-in of the satellites to be the same in each surround and the same in each front main (i've found that moving one surround to toe-in an inch more brought the rear sound to perfect, for an example).

if your sub is in phase with your satellites, your placement is as correct as possible, your levels are calibrated and there are no cascading filters between your 2900 and the 950...it will sound very, very good.

when you get your 2nd sub, let me know. it's relatively simple to have perfect BM in dvd-a/sacd with 2 subs (you'll noticeably hear the difference and that 'bloat' will be gone)

your set-up sounds great...i'm jealous. tell me more about the 2900 when you have the bugs worked out.

more must-have sacd multi-channel:

1. james taylor 'hourglass'

2. spyro gyra 'in modern times' (this is the best mixed multi-channel disc i've heard yet, by a studio called Heads Up.)

3. diana krall 'when i look in your eyes' (Will turned me on to her, though he mentioned the cd version. get the hybrid multi-channel sacd, it has both versions encoded (2-ch cd and multi-channel sacd).

also, thanks for the update.

Thanks Bosso. The 2900 has BM and time alignment for DVD-A. The time alignment is great. The BM also works for the SACD but no time TA. The Avia is in Dolby digital which is decoded by the 2900 internally and fed through the analog outputs. I really think it should have worked. The really strange thing is that it didn't work on the 950 either when I sent the signal digitally to the 950 and set the 950 mains to large and sub to no. I emailed Outlaw about it.



I haven't had a chance to compare yet but, due to placement, my sub is out of phase with the right main and left surround when using the 6 channel direct. I'll get back to you.



I have done this. There's something funky with the test tones in the 2900. After calibrating, I have to turn the sub down. Weird.



I totally agree and have as good a balance from placement as I'm going to get. The TA for DVD-A is a great tool.



I'm pretty happy right now and I'm not going to fret over the subwoofer channel because the whole thing will be changing in a couple of weeks. M&K should be shipping in two weeks. At a minimum, I'll be able to solve the phase issue described above. I'll let you know.



I will and thanks for the suggestions. If a universal player is in your future, hold off on this one until its interaction with the 950 is a little more understood. It shouldn't take more than a couple of weeks.

BTW, get "Standing in the Shadows of Motown". In your case, get the new DVD and the book that came out several years ago. The book has many of Jamerson's lines transcribed. IMHO, it's required material for us bottom dwellers.

If you haven't yet, you might want to visit Home Theater Forum's "Audio/Video Sources" section for lots of talk on your player. A couple of 950 owners are posting over there and sharing their experiences with the 2900. Same over at AVS. If I had the money to spend on a universal player today, I'd buy this one! Best wishes, and best of luck!

Steves, thanks for the suggestion. I've been following those threads with much interest.

UPDATE: Above, I reported that the LFE was not redirected to the mains by the 950 while using the digital input, mains set to large and sub set to no. I tried again last night and it worked fine. I have no idea what I missed. So far, I have not been able to get the 2900 to do the same with its internal decoders and analog output.

I pulled the trigger and bought the 2900 last night. I had to rearrange the audio rack, and while I was at it swapped it w/ subwoffer to accomodate a new video cable someone gave me.

So 2 hours later...

Power on.
Walk through setup. With all of the complaints from long ago about 950/BM I left it off on analog inputs and let the 2900 handle it. There have been complaints on AVS about a lack of Bass, not the case in my setup. I had to back the bass down.

Problem:
Only audio from front 2 channels... grumble, grumble. I recheck connections, look at manuals, nothing. Now I run up and down the stairs (computer /internet upstairs) searching online for the problem on about the 8th trip (good exercise by the way) I remember in the back of my head something about the 950 having to be in a non 2-channel mode before swithing to analog in. Thanks to those of you who went before and figured that out.

Bottom line, I haven't even callibrated yet, and I'm very impressed. Audio superb. This is my first listen at multi-channel audio, but I'm hooked. By the way anybody got suggestions for media? I bought DSOTM, Dianna Krall, James Taylor, and Journey's Greatest hits (I swear it is 2 channel though unless I missed something).

I put in the Matrix for a few minutes to play with video. The player has some setting to increase blacks, (maybe the Matrix wasn't the best movie to test that with it is pretty much dark already).

So, this player is definately a keeper for me.

Well I have posted on both forums[I'm the author on the HTF one].
Couple of things, the testone[lfe] in the 2900 is off by 10db[too low],second the RS meter is also off by 3db[avarage],so if it shows the same value for the sub and for the others,then you too hot by 3db for the sub.
When you select "off" on the "filter" setting in the Denon,you sending an extra 5db to the sub output.
The best bass for me is the following set up.
BM engaged on the Denon "filter on" all speakers are small,sub on.
On the 950 BM "Off" on 6ch input.
I only calibrated the 5 main channels using the Telarc disc[Celebrating the music of Wheater Report]DVD-A tones,the sub ch shows once again 10db too low. DO NOT be bothered by this![If you try to "correct" that by lowering the main channels to match the sub out,you'll get the "Blue Man Group performing anything you put in to play" trust me you don't need to do that]
Left all calibration in tact on the 950 that was done previously using the digital inputs with Avia.
I get perfect bass from all sources using the 2900 connected to the 950 via 6ch in/out.

Now that a couple of you have spent some time with your Denon 2900 / 950 combination, is there any consensus on the right combination of settings for Bass Management. I'm finding insufficient bass in analog mode. I have tried to compensate on the 950 to no avail.

Anyone have a comprehensive setup procedure that produced good results for them?

Thanks.

TX_Outlaw

Bottom line, I haven't even callibrated yet, and I'm very impressed. Audio superb. This is my first listen at multi-channel audio, but I'm hooked. By the way anybody got suggestions for media?

Try Eagles Hotel Califorina and Donald Fagen
The Night Fly, both in DVD-A. Awesome!

IF you are looking for a disc to show off what multichannel can do I would suggest Beck's "Sea Change". I am not that fond of the music as I am a Jazz, Blues, Folk music person. But this disc sounds great in the multichannel mode. It is a hybrid so you can listen in 2 channel SACD as well as multichannel but is not as impressive to me in the 2 channel. When Friends want to know about multichannel this is the one I pull out and play first. You can get it new for $14 at Best Buy and less used or new on Ebay. Great Demo disc and it may be your cup of tea on music, just not mine.

JW,

The Hun's setup, which is posted just above your post, is a good one. Mine is setup in the opposite manner where I have the speakers set to large, sub=yes in the Denon and the 950's analog bass management switch turned on. Either setup is a good place to start.