I recently purchased a used Sansui 9090DB reciever as the foundation of my two channel system that I will be putting in a separate room from my HT. I am aquiring the pieces while I wait for the room to be vacated. Son is getting married and moving on and I'm going to use his room for a stereo listening set up.

Until then I was wondering if there is a way to run this thing thru my 950 so that I won't have to keep switching speaker and sub cables. The reciever has 2 pre-outs with one set connecting the recievers amp.

Can I just run a set of analog cables from my dvd player 2 channel out to the sansui tape in, then use the sansui's pre-out to the 950 aux 1 and then use stereo by-pass on the 950 in order to use the sansui's tone and balance controls? Or am I just pissing against the wind here?

The dvd player is also wired to the 950's 5.1 input by way of the dvd's 5.1 out and also the optical cable can I just leave these hooked up since it has seperate 2 channel outs or will that just muck things up?

Any ideas or help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
joel

Maybe I'm being dense, but I don't see exactly what you are trying to accomplish with this setup.

If the goal is to get some listening time in on the Sansui, I can see a couple options. One is the method you describe, although it puts two volume controls in the signal path (always a bit of a pain). Another is to get a speaker switch box with the receiver's output and the amp's output both going into it and out to your main speakers (assuming you're still using the same speakers for both the Sansui and the 950 at this point). A third possibility would be a switch box between the 950 and the amp, so you could switch between preamp output of the 950 and preamp output of the Sansui going into the Cinenova Grande. In all three cases, you should be able to have the DV-563a hooked up with 5.1 analog and optical digital going to the 950 and stereo analog going to the Sansui - I use my player that way, with 5.1 analog to the 950 for DVD-A and SACD, coaxial digital audio for DVD's, and stereo analog for CD, all connected to the 950. Obviously, none of these arrangements are optimal, but they would let you at least play with the Sansui while you wait for the son's wedding (and your two-channel system's speakers to show up).

I'm getting the same impression. I'd probably just leave the HT set as it is unless you're really desperate to hear the Sansui.

I bought the item off Ebay and wanted to use it for a while just to be sure everything worked as claimed. I didn't want to run extra cables or keep switching cables, since my intent was to use it for a week or so

I hooked it up as I described and it worked perfectly. I set the 950 to max volume and used the Sansui to control the listening level. In fact the results were quite interesting. Everyone in the house agrees that the music sounds fuller and the base it puts out is astounding. Switching between the Sansui and the 950 really shows this. In fact the 950 sounds pretty anemic compared to the reciever. What gives? When I recieved my first 950 there was little or no base at all and Outlaw sent me a replacement which seemed satisfactory until now, at least when listening to music

I'd be careful leaving the 950 at max volume, assuming you'll want to switch to another source in the home theater at some point. Could be a bit startling.

It's interesting that you are noticing such a difference with the signal still passing through the 950 - since the 950 is still in the signal path, I would think the difference in sound has more to do with settings (bass management, etc) than the 950's hardware. I'll assume you are using stereo bypass on the 950 for whatever input you have the Sansui's preamp outputs connected to. In that case, the DVD player's DAC's will be handling the digital-to-analog conversion, the Sansui passes that analog signal through it's signal path (adding any tone controls requested) to volume control and then on to preamp outputs, and the 950 takes that analog signal and passes it through a second volume control (this one leaving the signal largely untouched) and out to the amp. Two things occur to me at this point. One, you may be preferring the Pioneer's DAC to the 950's DAC for CD playback. This is not unheard of. With my Yamaha CD changer and Panasonic DVD-Audio player, I tended to prefer the 950's DAC, but with my Yamaha universal DVD player I prefer the player's DAC to the 950's and therefore use stereo bypass for CD listening. Two, a stronger bass signal may be noticed in this case if you have the mains set to small with a fairly typical crossover point (80Hz or so). This is because of the way the 950's stereo bypass behaves: the signal to the mains is passed unaltered (as expected with an analog bypass), but a copy of the signal is processed through the digital bass management and a signal produced for the subwoofer. The logic here is that if you have the mains set to small then the crossover is going to be set appropriately to cover the territory below the speaker's lower limit and allowing the sub to share that signal will help fill the void.

Here's an experiment to try when you remove the Sansui (or before, if you desire): connect the stereo analog output of the DV-563A to an input on the 950 and try listening to a CD in stereo bypass. You should hear much the same thing you are hearing now, with the exception being that any tone control introduced by the Sansui will not be present.

Quote:

I'd be careful leaving the 950 at max volume, assuming you'll want to switch to another source in the home theater at some point. Could be a bit startling.

You're right, I've made it a habit over the years to set all volume levels back to minimum after use.

Quote:

I'll assume you are using stereo bypass on the 950 for whatever input you have the Sansui's preamp outputs connected to. In that case, the DVD player's DAC's will be handling the digital-to-analog conversion, the Sansui passes that analog signal through it's signal path (adding any tone controls requested) to volume control and then on to preamp outputs, and the 950 takes that analog signal and passes it through a second volume control (this one leaving the signal largely untouched) and out to the amp.

The Sansui is connected to the 950 thru Aux 2. The Loudness switch on the Sansui is set to off and the selector switches for Bass and Treble are set to off which defeats their use. The DVD player is set to large for all speakers and the sub is set to off.

The 950 has all the surrounds and center set to small with the Xovers set at 150. The sub is set to off. The front speakers are set to large. The speakers have powered subs on-board that recieve their signal from L&R outputs going to the amp. I found that this stereo configuration sounded better than splitting the signal off the sub out.

Quote:

Here's an experiment to try when you remove the Sansui (or before, if you desire): connect the stereo analog output of the DV-563A to an input on the 950 and try listening to a CD in stereo bypass. You should hear much the same thing you are hearing now, with the exception being that any tone control introduced by the Sansui will not be present.

Pretty much the same. The Sansui sounds fuller with a more defined bass and the 950 sounds for the lack of a better word "tinny" in comparision.

Everyone here absolutely loves the system for our Tuesday movie nights, no complaints whats so ever. Since I'm putting together a dedicated 2 channel system the point is moot, but still this is very interesting. I'm curious if anyone else has felt that their 950's lacked a little something when it comes to 2 channel music.

By the way, I appreciate that people have taken the time to respond, especially you gonk.

Thanks,
joel

So the Pioneer-Sansui-Outlaw-Cinenova signal path sounds better than the Pioneer-Outlaw-Cinenova path? That's sort of a head-scratcher. If we were looking at the Sansui in place of the 950, that would be one thing, but the 950 is still in the signal path. Hmmm... Oh, well, it sounds like the Sansui is going to work out for your two-channel setup at least.

Overall, I've been very satisfied with the two channel performance of my 950. The one time I remember feeling like CD playback was thin was shortly after I got my current DVD player (Yamaha DVD-S1500) and discovered that when multichannel output is enabled for DVD-Audio discs, CD's played through the 5.1 output went through Dolby Pro Logic II processing before leaving the player - a setting issue within my player, not part of the 950. Using the S1500's stereo analog output for CD's solved that problem.

Quote:

So the Pioneer-Sansui-Outlaw-Cinenova signal path sounds better than the Pioneer-Outlaw-Cinenova path? That's sort of a head-scratcher. If we were looking at the Sansui in place of the 950, that would be one thing, but the 950 is still in the signal path. Hmmm...

Since I am set to stereo by-pass other than volume how much of an impact does the 950 have on the signal from the Sansui? Let me try it without bypass to see what it sounds like......in bypass it sounds louder/fuller with a more satisfying bass than when it is set to just stereo.

Quote:

Oh, well, it sounds like the Sansui is going to work out for your two-channel setup at least.

I had one just like it back in 1979 and lost it when the house burned down, so when I saw one on ebay it give me the idea to build another 2 channel system, all I needed was the okay from my very understanding spouse concerning the use of the room. Now if she will just buy me those Polk SRS speakers for Giftmas I'll be all set.

There is nothing like Pre-1980 analog gear..