The Outlaw 950 is late. So I'm looking at alternatives.

The Yamaha RX-V1300 has everything I want, accept for good bass management.

So would the following work?

Use the ICBM on the "pre out" outputs from the receiver before the power amps? The ICBM does support 6.1, I just saw from the literature (cool!).

Then I'd set the receiver config for my speakers as all large, subwoofer yes. (So the receiver would still send the DD/DTS LFE signal to the sub, but the ICBM would route all crossed over bass to the sub too.)

I think all that would work.

Here's where I get confused. If I do properly set the distances/delays to all the speakers, how will the ICBM handle that? There will be phase differences around, right? (But I can separately adjust the phase between the mains and the sub anyway.)

The best way might be to set all those distances the same, but then I lose "time coherency" within my system.

Any help would be appreciated... Thanks!

I think what you want to do will work fine.

People have talked about the phase difference problem, and there is a problem in that bass arriving at your sub from different channels will have been delayed differently.

But I don't think it will be too much of a problem because phasing is less of a problem at lower frequencies, and because your distance differences will probably not be more than a few milliseonds.

Of course, someone else can come in and correct me on this if they'd tried this and noticed problems with the time delays.

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Matthew J. Hill
matt@idsi.net

Kevin,

I have mine ordered to be used between my Marantz Sr8200 and Acurus Amps. I plan on using the L/R sub out for two Sealed Shiva subs I'm building and running the LFE channel from the reciever to a sonosub for HT.

Lee

Matthew- Dang, you are exactly right! (Sub phase less affected by differences in distance.) That's why neither the Outlaw or Rotel pre/pros have a distance/delay setting for the sub vs the speakers.

Lee- Cool! So I'm not the only one thinking about doing this. Could you post here and let us know what you think when you get everything hooked up?

I have an ICBM between a Yamaha RX-V2095 and a Parasound HCA-2205AT power amp. I have not tried a dedicated pre/pro, but adding the amp made a significant difference in my system. I'm using NHT 1.5's in an all-NHT setup, and they love the power.

The Yamaha has numerous "soundfields", which I believe really are usable. There are some over-the-top ones, like a cathedrael sound, but others are very nice. I regularly use the 70mm adventure setting for DVD's, which autodetects to DD Adventure or DTS Adventure. That ssetting tames some of the harsh highs in some mixes of CD's, and creates a very nice "big" soundfield. I also use the Pro Logic Enhanced setting for TV. It greatly expands the soundfield of Pro Logic, without an artificial effect. I occasionally use the Variety/sports setting for football games - It has an uncanny aability to isolate dialogue to the center, and put crowd noise all around. There are cinema setting for video concerts, etc, which play nicely with music DVD's.

I would advise you to get a Yamaha receiver as far up the line as you can afford, even looking for closeout models of earlier models, like the 2095. You won't get all the bells and whistles of the newer formats and channels, but the pre/pro performance should be better than a lower end current model. Then, when the time comes for a real pre/pro, you have a high end recever ready for a bedroom or rec room system.

Hope this helps.