Aloha again. Thanks all for your recs - the 990/7125 is working out great, even with my older inputs. Just received my first new input today, the oppo 981. Little confused - I don't do v/switching - HDMI going straight to my 1080i CRT. Want to run audio output x 2 to the 990 - digital audio for DVD-video format, and analog(6) for SACD. 1) Will the 990 apply my speaker distance and level settings to the analog feeds, so that I don't have to perform this optional setup on the Oppo? 2) What, if any, would be the correct HDMI audio setting on the Oppo so that I wouldn't have to change settings to perform the above audio outputs as well as receive audio for my TV speakers? Mahalo.

1. Yes, the 990 will apply bass management to the 7.1 Direct input.

2. You might want to take a look at my 981HD review , but basically I'd recommend the following at the 981HD: all speakers set to "large", subwoofer "on", set all speaker delays to 0 (center and surrounds have some delay by default, and the 990 will handle this properly for you on the 7.1 Direct input anyway), digital audio to "raw" (same as bitstream on some other players, so the digital audio output you're sending to the 990 gets the DD and DTS bitstreams), and HDMI Audio to "LPCM" so your TV always gets an audio signal it knows what to do with ("Auto" would pass DD and DTS bitstreams to the TV, which it may or may not be cool with).

Much thanks.

I am still waiting for my Oppo 981 (I guess going through Amazon was a mistake -- cheaper shipping), and I'm appreciating all this advance discussion.

I'd be happy to hear more about what sort of configurations work well between the 981, the 990, and your television(s)/displays/etc.

Thanks!

My 981HD got connected every way that was possible since I was trying to test as many things as I could. With DVD's and CD's, the HDMI (either straight to the TV or through the 990's DVI switching) for video and coaxial or optical to the 990 for audio is an easy and sure-fire approach. If you want to toss DVD-A and SACD into the mix, a 5.1 analog connection to the 990's 7.1 Direct input (with the associated DVI input assigned to the 7.1 Direct input, if you are using the 990's DVI switching for the 981HD) will take care of that, too.

Gonk, awesome review on your website, thanks. I'm still waiting on the arrival of some SACD disks, but I couldn't tell from your review if the the 990 will apply Pro-Logic or otherwise to the Oppo's multi-channel analog output so that the rears in my 7.1 system are enabled?

No, the 990 will not apply any digital processing to the multichannel analog input. I've heard of a number of HD-DVD and Blu-ray owners using splitters to feed the side surround signal from their 5.1 sources to both side and back surround inputs on their receivers and processors in order to enable the rear surrounds, but I haven't tried it myself.

I love my oppo.

The SACD decoding is amazing.

Im not sure I prefer it over Stereo, but its fun!

Gonk, I was a little confused with regard to subwoofer settings for the 7.1 input selection because the surround mode is not active, but it seems as if the bass management is processed as if the surround setting is for stereo - ie., no sub signal when 990 configured for fronts Large/LFE, and a crossover only signal when configured for fronts Large/LR+sub. Is this correct ?

The 990 will apply bass management to the 7.1 Direct inputs in exactly the same manner as it applies bass management to other sources. That means that when the front are large and the sub is LFE only, a stereo source played through the 7.1 Direct inputs goes to the mains only (nothing crossed over to the sub). Likewise, a stereo source played through the 7.1 Direct input when fronts are large and the sub is L/R+Sub will send full range to the mains and produce a sub signal from the mains. The one case where the latter would not be true would be if all speakers were set to large, in which case the 990 does not apply any bass management to the 7.1 Direct input (even if the sub is set to L/R+Sub).