From extensive reading I have found that no matter what, the 990 will add bass management to analog inputs unless speakers are set to large. My Denon 2910 has a fixed 80Hz crossover perfect for my speakers and I do not want the 990 to apply the same crossover twice.

If I set speakers to large in the 990 to avoid extra bass management, will I have to set them back to small for digital inputs or does it remember to keep large for analog bypass and small for digital inputs?

Yes, you will - the speaker settings are global.

Sounds like we need a software update to fix this problem. I can't understand why they took the option of complete analog bypass away without switching speakers to large.

I think it's a software problem, as well, and I expect it'll get sorted out when the 990's planned firmware update comes together.

Forgive me for some still added confusion regarding this....

My Denon 2910 DVD player allows me to set "source direct" which will bypass it's 80Hz crossover sending a straight source to the 990. Wouldn't this be the way to go since the 990's bass management is always on with speakers set to small?

Also, what is the difference between setting my crossover to 80Hz and setting the speakers to small. I would think setting 80Hz would in essence make my speakers small as they would not receive lower freqs. In other words, what would be the difference between having my crossover set at 80Hz and having speakers set to small or large?

I'm not sure when the 2910 uses that source direct mode. It would not be doing any bass management for digital outputs no matter what, since it is simply passing the audio bitstream without any manipulation. For DVD-Audio and SACD and any other analog output, however, it is decoding and converting to analog, so it does have the opportunity for bass management. If that is the avenue where source direct is available, I agree that it's probably a good idea to use source direct and let the 990 handle it.
With the 990 (and the 950, 1070, and 970), setting a speaker to large or small is the first step in configuring bass management - you also select the crossover frequency that you want to use. Both steps are important. "Small" means "use the crossover point I select" while "large" means "I don't need no steenking crossover" and the crossover point is ignored. If the crossover is at 80Hz and the speakers are small, then the 990 crosses over at 80hz for those speakers. If the crossover point is 80Hz and the speakers are large, then the 990 does not cross anything over.

Why not set the speakers to large in the Denon and let the 990 do its thing?

Mitch

That's the approach that I generally recommend, mitchius - set the speakers to large in the player for DVD-Audio and SACD and let the 990 handle the bass management.

Yes, this was how I solved this problem. I turned source direct on in the Denon, bypassing it's bass management completely.

My problem with switching my Denon 3910 to Source Direct and/or Large speaker settings and letting the 990 do the bass management is that the 990 needs to A/D the sound first. So my Denon D/As it, then the 990 A/Ds it, then bass manages. I don't like that many conversions, and when I compared the two setups, I preferred the Denon's to the 990's. So for my money, Outlaw *still* needs to address the issue braidkid made in his first post.

Rick

Excellent point Rick! Those multiple conversions can't be good.
Any ideas what this means from the 990 product description page:
"• 7.1 channel direct input with digital bass management and pure by-pass" ?

What is the pure by-pass?
Mitch

If you set all speakers to "large" the 990 will pass the 7.1 analog signal straight through, with no digital step. Several of us have asked about adding a software option to allow this bypass while leaving speakers set to "small" for bass management in other modes - which would resolve ender21's issue.