I've been considering the Outlaw 950/710 combo package.

One of the main things I'm interested in is the 950's ability to apply analog bass management to a DVD-A (or SACD although I don't have SACD) analog signal.

I was wondering if any owners out there could voice their oppinions/impressions of this feature.

Also, although this doesn't apply to my current speaker configuration, I was wondering WHY Outlaw chose to sum bass below 80Hz and send it to the sub, even when the analog bass management is set to OFF? It seems to me that if someone really had true full range speakers on all channels, and wanted no bass management for dvd-a/sacd, that this would be detrimental... you would get TOO much bass in this situation. Major bummer...

Any comments on that?

Also, there are lots of positive reviews to be found about the 950, but I was wondering if anyone out there could post some complaints they've had of the 950... what DON'T you like about it?

This is copied from a thread I started at HTF.

Thanks!

-Kieran

the only reason i can come up with is that if you do not want sub output, you can always turn off your sub. This would give you the same results as a pure pass-through. Some people do not care about double-bass and simply want their sub to be doing something regardless. So i guess having the output always summed to the sub gives you the choice.

that being said, i also wish they did not do it that way. It's especially odd for outlaw because using their ICBM along with the 950's multi-inputs is a useless configuration...there is no way to get proper bass management using these two devices (the multi-inputs only, the icbm works fine with all of the other features of the 950) together.

c3g- It is a kludge, but you can use the ICBM with the 950 to get full range, no double bass, performance.

All large, sub on in the player. To the ICBM. The ICBM has a feature whereby you effectively reroute the LFE to the mains. So now you are sending a 5.0 signal to the 950. LFE is mixed in with the mains. Now, just connect the 5.0 cables to the 950. No LFE connected. Turn your sub off. You get 5.0 out of the 950, no double bass.

Obviously, not ideal, but if someone really does have full range mains, they shouldn't care if the LFE is mixed in with the mains or not.

This is actually no different than saying all large, sub off in your player, but it's already been posted on HTF, that this doesn't work right on any Pioneer based player for DVD-A and maybe even SACD, I can't remember the details. (47a, 45a, 47ai, Onkyo 800, Integra something, Marantz 8300, and even presumably the new Lex RT-10.)

I'm confused. Are you saying something's wrong on the 47a, 45a, 47ai, Onkyo 800, an Integra, Marantz 8300, and presumably the new Lex RT-10 with regard to bass management for DVD-A's?

I understand the newer Pioneer Elites and maybe some of the other units have digital DVD-A interfaces. The Pioneer Elite DVD player has a digital interface to the Pioneer Elite receiver, so it doesn't need to use 6 analog cables. This lets the DVD-A bass management be done digitally, like Dolby and DTS bass management is done today (digitally) by just about everyone.

[This message has been edited by Will (edited April 01, 2003).]

If the ICBM is between the DVD-A/SACD and the 950, and you set the speaker crossovers to 80 or greater than there isn't any bass to sum. If you have the ICBM then don't think it matters how the bass mgmt switch on 950 is set.

I recently acquired the 950 & 7100 combo. I'm thrilled. It is a significant quality improvement over the ($1000 receiver I had). Am real intrigued that tuner is as good as it is.

Things that seem somewhat awkward:
- Waiting for the decoder to interpret the signal (especially changing channels on SAT tuner).
- Not being able to change tuner station with unit doing remote source output
- Be nice if could assign video inputs to different sources (i.e. jukebox on video4 to CD source)
- The component video switching is nice, but the value of doing it at the TV is being able to watch one thing while having the 950 do another.

This is not the case! An 80hz crossover does not mean all information below 80hz is removed. Crossovers are slopes, so a crossover at 80hz using the ICBM will still have significant output well below 80hz. This "left over" bass information is then going to be passed on to the 6.1 inputs and will be summed and sent to the sub.





[This message has been edited by chris3g (edited April 01, 2003).]

Will- Yes. *Any* of those Pioneer-based players have the following flaws with DVD-A:

1) With the mains as large, and the sub off, they do *not* reroute the LFE signal to the mains the way they are supposed to.

2) BM for 4.0 does not work at all. 2.0 does work correctly, and 5.1 is unknown because no one has tested conclusively for it. (Or, at least *posted* to that effect.)

Although that is a problem, I think usually for most HT systems, there is a sub.

But on a related note, as I recall, with DVD-A, the .1 channel may at times carry frequencies well above 80 Hz and there wasn't a concensus on where to route the high frequency .1 channel information, when there's a sub in the system.

However, my information may be dated. Can anyone confirm if the .1 channel sometimes has frequencies well above 80 Hz, in DVD-A?

Will, you're correct, the ".1" channel in DVD-A can (and frequently does) have material over 80 Hz. The reason is that it's not necessarily a subwoofer channel, rather it's a sixth channel. The 950's BM strategy "converts" DVD-A for most home theater applications where the sixth channel is hooked to a subwoofer and the other speakers are not full range. The subwoofer channel gets the summed bass from the other five channels along with its own material and goes through a 120 Hz low pass filter. Anything in the sixth channel over 120 Hz is removed (I don't know what the slope is) and is lost.

In my setup, I'd rather lose the high frequency stuff than try to make my sub play full range. If you can listen to Fleetwood Mac: Rumors through a system without the filter and put a full range speaker in place of the sub, you'd hear early reflection vocals on a couple of songs.

On the Sony TA-E9000ES, the low pass freq of the LFE channel (*separate* from the low pass freq applied the mains info that is rerouted to the sub) was user selectable. You could go as high as 200 Hz. Something I hope the 950's big brother has when it eventually comes out. You could also boost or cut the LFE level separately from the crossed over info with an "LFE mix" setting.

BTW, that Chesky Ultimate DVD-A/V disc we sometimes talk about, has group of DVD-A tracks denoted 6.0, where all the channels are wide band.

Will- If there are some people out there with *true* full range speakers all about, they wouldn't need a sub. Although I personally agree with you, that I prefer one.