i've been on the list since early march and have followed the saloon postings regularly.
needless to say, it has been exhausting.
i have, most likely as most have, searched the world over to find a reasonably priced new/used pre/pro or receiver with all the decoding options of the 950, good reviews, no bugs reported, etc.
i have considered the integra 8.2 and marantz sr9200 receivers using the preamp outs.
i tried too hard to deal with rotel who gave me a local dealer whose number was disconnected, etc., etc.
the high end makers are all too much money.
so...as sherlock said....once you have eliminated all the possibilities, whatever choice is left, no matter how unlikely, is the correct choice.
i have decided to relax and wait til hell freezes over for my de-bugged 950.
having said what i hope will suffice to condense the last 5.5 months, i would like to add my two cents on the double bass issue.
i think double bass is a good thing. if you set your main speakers to large, they will receive full range program, as will the sub.
most full range speakers are not capable of playing back program under 35hz. (this assumes 35 hz. @-3db., which actually begins to fall to that level at around 50hz.).
i plan to insert at the rear of the monoblock amps feeding the mains, an fmod high pass line level x-over of 50hz, then adjust the x-over on my sub accordingly.
that way, any program sent to the 950 by the sacd/dvd-a player which is below the capability of my mains will be reproduced with only the desired overlap.
if i understand the situation correctly, this is not only a good thing, but would not be possible without the "double bass" feature.
i admit that not having a 950 to play with and not really scrutinizing the threads on this subject makes this theory of turning my 3-way mains into, in effect, 4-way mains with much lower range, suspect.
i have therefore offered this thought so that i may get feedback from those of you who know better and/or own a 950.
i'd also like to add that i have enjoyed reading most of the postings in the saloon beacause you are all smart people with mostly good things to say. i've learned a lot here and i appreciate that fact.

I'd have to disagree. The 950 can provide a crossover as low as 40 hz on the digital side. If the little switch is set to 'no crossover' then there should be no crossover, period.

It defeats the purpose of having a set of 'purist' analog inputs if they monkey around with the signal anyway.

How tough could it be to set or clear a bit somewhere to turn the summing off or on?

Just my opinion, YMMV.

Well, yes, it does seem that it'd be a relatively simple matter to be able to turn the subwoofer off independently of all the other settings in the setup menu, analog in or digital in. Oh well....

That, to me, is not a full range speaker. A full range speaker gives you -3 dB to 20 Hz. They do exist. They do not have to be that expensive. A lot of people have them.

At the very *least*, Outlaw should have made that "feature" user selectable.

I second that motion. Or is it third?

------------------
Matthew J. Hill
matt@idsi.net

While "full range" speakers that go down to 20Hz @3db do exist, they are very few and far between and far from being the norm.

[This message has been edited by karlengle (edited August 20, 2002).]

In fact, it is rather unusual for ANY speaker to go truly below 30/35 Hz -6 dB (non SW).

Please note: not referring here to mfr so-called specs - but actual objective measurements. Please don't get sucked in by 'advertised specs.'

For example, the Tannoy TD10 - huge, expensive speaker $5-10,000 pair only does 38 Hz at -6dB.

[This message has been edited by Jason Kent (edited August 20, 2002).]

Yeah, don't read to much into speaker 'specs'. For example, a given speaker might test to -3 db at say 30 Hz very easily at a 1 meter SPL of 70 Hz.
But, when you try to run it on up to higher SPLs, like the 100-115 dB required of a sub at Dolby reference levels, it might drop WAY down at those frequencies.

In other words, just like most other 'measurements' or statistics, speaker frequency responses are easily manipulated, and misunderstood even easier.

[QUOTE]

It defeats the purpose of having a set of 'purist' analog inputs if they monkey around with the signal anyway.

to me, it defeats the purpose of having a set of "purist" analog inputs if your system can't reproduce the source material.

sacd/dvd-a formats are capable of reproducing a range of frequencies above and below human hearing with huge headroom.
above 20khz. means little to me as i can't hear it. but, below 20khz. means alot because, though i may not hear it, i can certainly feel it.

the point is...if the artist intended it (and certainly many will as more musicians experiment with these formats), i want to be able to play it back.

I agree there. But if the system can't reproduce the source material (I'm assuming you're talking deep bass in the mains) then the system needs an ICBM or the built in management. The point is, there is a teeny little switch on the back panel that claims to shut off the built in bass management but does not. So those 'straight wire with gain' inputs turn out to be anything but.

For systems that need some help in the deep bass it's probably much less noticable, in some cases may even be a good thing, but it doesn't help those of us who have systems that can do it without help. And the sad thing is it took extra work to make this happen. I would have much rather this 'feature' was ommited, the price dropped $50, and a family discount was available on an ICBM.

Who knows, maybe the spare bytes and labor could have been poured into re-nameable inputs or discrete time delay adjustments or any number of things.

But I must in all fairness admit it seems worse for me because it does affect me probably more than most.



[This message has been edited by charlie (edited August 20, 2002).]