Purchased a HD-A1 earlier in the week after reading about how/why it plays regular CD's well here . Been thinking about getting a dedicated CD player for a while, and good CD playback reviews combined with the nice Continental One Pass discount (works out to just over 30% off retail+taxes)....was enough to get me off the sidelines....since I was looking at $300-$800 CD players, if the HDA1 plays CD's as well as reviewed above...then it is almost like getting HD-DVD video as a free bonus, at least that is how I justified purchasing a player before the format war settles out .

The HD-A1 should be here next week, so can't test things yet, but wanted to clear up connection questions using it with the 990. If I have read things right then my best audio option for hddvd's is connecting the 5.1 analog outs of the HDA1 to the 7.1 analog inputs on the 990, and turning off BM in the HDA1 using large speaker settings in it's audio menus. Connected this way I should be able to use the new HD audio formats, and take advantage of what some SACD player owners consider a bug in the 990's 7.1 direct, by using the 990 for BM. The problem is I have a 7.1 speaker setup, and use DPLiix for movies, and like it, especially with the increased output in the back rears after the firmware update.


Has it been verified that this can't be changed with an update? Also, I might be missing something technically, but why would the 7.1 analogs be designed to not allow processing on them? I see how 7.1 might be a problem, but when using only 5.1 analog how is it different than 5.1 from standard dvd tracks, especially since BM IS applied to the 7.1 direct input, doesn't that mean it already has been converted from analog to digital to apply the BM? Why can't it be directed to the 990's dsps? Outlaw has clearly explained why they decided not to use hdmi connections (which I agree with...have used the dvi switching in the 990 from the start), but I got the impression the 7.1 analog inputs were a way to allow future compatibility on the audio side of things if/when the HD audio formats came out. Maybe Outlaw made the assumption that since players were going to handle the processing of the new HD audio formats, all HD players would include 7.1 analogs instead of the the 5.1 put in the first generation of HD players....but it sure would be nice to use my 7.1 speaker setup with the HDA1, when using the HD audio formats.


On the music side of things, I would like to see how the multiple high end audio DACS/DSP's in the HDA1 sound unaltered when playing standard audio cd's...so using the 2 channel stereo outs connected to the 990's 2 channel CD inputs is the way to go here right? Something I am still confused on is if I use the 2 channel CD input, does that disable the Xover settings/BM on the 990....or am I going to be stuck with having to modify Xover's again.