I have had the 990 for a month now and am thoroughly enjoying it's rich feature set and amazing sound. I upgraded from the 950 which I also loved.

I really enjoy multichannel DVD-A and SACD recordings via the 990. I have read Gonk's comments in his excellent 990 review and recently the first professional review in Ultimate AV regarding digital bass management and multichannel audio.

Please excuse my ignorance but the way I understand it is that even though I am feeding an analog signal to the 990 via 7.1 input, in 7 CH direct mode , the signal goes thru a A/D conversion, is bass managed, and is D/A coverted again. Joel from Ultimate A/V does not recommend this as he feels it dulls the pristine sound of these recordings this way! He recommends using your DVD players bass management instead. On the other hand I know Gonk was pleased with the 990's bass management and detected no loss of quality at all. Personally I think it sounds fantastic as well.

My question is: is this what actually happens in 7.1 direct mode and if so how do I activate a "pure bypass" for multichannel audio on the 990. I know how to do this for stereo sources but I would like to know how for multichannel so I can compare both ways.

Thanks in advance

If I'm not mistaken, if you set all your speakers to "large" you effectively disable bass management on DVD-A/SACD.

Cheers,

Yes, but we want bass managment for the other sources, way too much fiddling each time I want to play a SACD. Has anyone tried this? All to large to see the effects, and then just one speaker to small and 40hz, then all to 40hz? The critical midrange is paramount. Of course you would have to use+ bass managment on the SACD machine, or outboard like the ICBM...I know, maybe I should do it as I have two ICBMs and Maggnapan 20.0s, ect., ect. Thing is a new baby and found out the loose floor I'd needed to fix is due to carpenter ants, and I need to fix it before the carpet gets changed...
Anways, I understand a software revision is just around the corner, and hope Scott passes on this issue (meaning we need the ability to have selectable A/d/a BM on 7.1, independant from other inputs)

Having a software toggle for this would be nice. An alternative for those with programmable remotes would be a short macro that set the speaker sizes appropriately for each source. The more annoying bug for me is having my input processing settings on the CD input randomly switch from bypass or upsample to PLII.

I'm interested in getting some clarification on how the bass management and time delay works with the 7.1 multichannel input.

The most user friendly option is to let the 990 digitize the input and apply bass management. However, will the 990 also apply time delay to the speakers? If not, how can you apply time delay as I'm sure most people do not have speakers that are equidistant to the main listening area?

Hopefully, the 990 can apply time delay to the 7.1 input. If not, can you set the speakers in your DVD/SACD player's bass management screens to large and allow it to apply the time delay based on the distance settings in the DVD player? Will setting the delay in the DVD player mess up the bass management in the 990?

Thanks

In digitizing the inputs it does apply time delay as well as bass management.

I am so confused about this, hopefully someone can clarify.

My 2910 DVD player has the option to output either a pure direct signal or a 80Hz crossed over signal. Does the 990, in direct analog mode, apply bass management or not? From reading the AV review, the reviewer states the 990 does not apply bass management using direct analog. Then I read Gonk's review and he states the 990 does apply bass management using direct analog. Which one is correct? Should I output a full pure direct signal from my player or use the 80Hz crossover in my player?

Can someone please help?

I don't own the 990 but I would put $20 on Gonk. Rarely is he wrong about Outlaw products.