The 990 (and all surround processors) has to determine whether the incoming signal is PCM, Dolby Digital, or DTS before applying the correct decoding. An incorrect guess would lead to unpleasant sounding gibberish. Therefore, the first moment that the digital signal is present the processor must mute itself to avoid such nastiness and decide what audio format it's dealing with. Older stereo DAC's knew exactly what they were going to get (PCM, and 16bit 44.1kHz when dealing with CD's), so they could start working as soon as they had a signal. The trick is to get the processor to make the decision as quickly as possible and to set the delay as short as possible without making it shorter than the signal acquisition time. The 950 was always a bit sluggish at this, with the most noticeable delays being associated with watching satellite or digital cable because the source itself had an audio delay of one or two seconds before even providing a digital signal for the processor to lock on to.

Before I bought the 990 I was considering an Adcom Pre/Pro and one of the reviews I read on it complained about missing the first note or so of each CD. That Pre/Pro cost quite a bit more then the 990. The Yamaha receiver I replaced with the 990 never had any kind of delay. It would decode PCM, DD and DTS automatically and had a plethora of DSP modes and never skipped a note. If they can do it why can’t the higher end Pre/Pros do it?

Okay, until the Outlaws figure out how to do what Daryl says his Yamaha does, could there be a bit of the next firmware upgrade that sets PCM as a default for all incoming digital information until the 990 determines that the format is something else, then switches accordingly? If there has to be "unpleasant sounding gibberish" for a second I'd rather it were at the beginning of material in which the first few seconds are less important for the appreciation of the overall work than they are for a lot of music. I can't recall any piece of video or film in which the first second or so of the audio made much difference, though others have probably had much wider experience in this area. (Well, maybe the beginning of "2001" - but that was Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra", which proves my point. And anyway a glitch at the start of a pianissimo low C isn't very conspicuous.)

I think that would be a pretty dangerous risk on their part - what happens when that gibberish blows out somebody's speaker? After all, the delay exists for a very specific reason.

just use analog, no delay and i prefer that to digital anyway, or bypass mode to skip the 990 all together my .2

UMtiger

Y'know, the more I think about this signal acquisition delay problem the less I like it. Maybe somebody can refute me on this, but it looks to me like SAD handicaps, not just the 990, but all HT equipment, for people who listen seriously to music from digital sources. And more distressing, at least for the 990, is that SAD is not mentioned in the manual - the new owner is given the delight of discovering it for him/her/self. Whether this is the case for other equipment I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised. The whole situation has a "Music listening? What's that?" smell about it.
Would prior knowledge about the SAD have been a deal-breaker for buying the 990? I don't know, but knowing that it can't be fixed or worked around eats into my pleasure of ownership.
A SAD situation indeed.
Chief Outlaws, this is intended for you.

Signal acquisition is a necessary evil - it affects any digital processor that receives multiple different audio formats. It's not something that Outlaw can correct. All they can do is try to minimize the effect, which any 950 owners who move to the 990 can tell you has certainly been done to a significant degree. Keep this in mind, as well: a well-behaved source that doesn't break and re-start the bitstream between tracks will allow the 990 (or any other receiver or processor) to only have to acquire the signal once (when the player first starts or the 990 first goes to that input). Players that drop the the signal at the end of a track and re-start the signal at the next track force the receiver or processor to re-analyse the signal each time.