I have a question about the 990 in two-channel mode. Several of the pre/pro's I am considering offer a form of stereo direct or "bypass" mode where sound is not routed through tone controls or video componentry. This mode typically only provides a signal to the front L and R speakers. I was looking through the 990 manual, and it looks like bypass modes still route a signal to the LFE/subwoofer channel. Is that right? Is there no direct two-channel mode? For HT applications I would likely set my front L and R speakers to small and use a subwoofer, but for two-channel music I would like to use my front L and R speakers full range without a subwoofer. It seems like none of the bypass modes would let me accomplish that without manually switching my front L and R speakers to large and disengaging the subwoofer each time I listen in two-channel mode. Is that correct? Anyone else have experience with this? I'd appreciate any input.

In bypass mode with L/R speakers set to large you will not have the sub. If L/R speakers are set to small you will have the sub in bypass mode.

It sounds like you've got a good handle on the 990's bypass mode. The stereo bypass mode passes an unaltered signal to the mains, but if the mains are set to small a copy of the signal is sent to the subwoofer.

Gonk, your simple replies to these issues are really helpful! Still I wonder, is there any possibility the SMALL/BYPASS mode could be altered with a 990 firmware update to send unaltered signal to the mains but digitally processed bass below the crossover frequency--instead of unaltered signal--to the sub? This would be like the "950 solution" to the problem that seemed like a workable compromise.

I don't know if it is possible or not. Looking at it from the perspective of a mechanical engineer, I would think the central challenge there would be providing a path for the analog signal to "flow" to the ADC and into the DSP for bass managment to allow for the creation of a subwoofer signal. Once that was done, it would presumably be possible to pipe that sub signal through a DAC and out without interfering with the original analog signal to the mains. Whether that change to the signal path is software or not is far beyond me. If it were water or air, I could probably make a better guess about the logistics.

Acknowledging the fact that this would require hardware changes, I think the 970/1070 BM toggle switch was a step in the right direction. I could see the Outlaw's taking this further in a future 990 v2 with a dial controlling the crossover rather than having it fixed at 80Hz in the analog domain.

Essentially, this would be introducing a typical sub analog crossover control into the pre/pro.

The path "may" already exist. I say this because in stereo mode my understanding is the signals are converted to digital, then processed. Therefore the signal path is there. What may not exist is the ability to have the input routed to both bypass and processed at the same time. If the switching implementation were individual analog switches then it might be possible, but if it is done as an analog multiplexor, then it is doubtful. This is all pure speculation as I don't have a schematic (I wish I did).