You're not the only one with the issue! I'm also appaled at the number of people who offered irrelevant solution to you on this thread. Most actually offered solutions to fix the reverse of our problem! I fully understood you issue at first reading, and english is not even my primary language!

In my case, I don't even have the luxury to lower the sub level because I don't actually run a sub! My mains L/R are full range beasts incorporating their own amplified woofers, so no add-on sub required here! So even if the sub offset would go both direction, this wouldn't fix my issue. Feeding the L/R with a regular full range stereo produce a balanced sound with plenty of bass response and headroom. Only with Dolby Digital source the bass is grossly overpowering everything.

Only an "LFE trim" adjustment would correct the bass output. Anyonw know why Dolby decided to boost the LFE signal by 10 dB at the encoding of a DD title? They call it a feature? I call it a defect!

I don't know see how I can fix this... I'm familar with my room, my equipment and my DVDs. I'm into HT and loud car audio since the early 90s and I do live sound mixing as part of my job for almost 20 years.

I opened a ticket with Outlaw, we'll see.

The LFE channel is not to have any bearing on your 2 channel music. It is a discrete information channel for Low Frequency Effects only (more BOOM!), starting at 120Hz on down. It should only be in effect if you are sending the processor a DD or DTS encoded signal that has LFE information. If you are experiencing a 10dB boost when you're not using a DD or DTS source, then there is indeed a problem in the processor/software implementation. An LFE trim adjustment of course is only for LFE information. All other routing of bass is to be at the system signal levels, i.e., same as the front speakers.

Hello. I did said that my problem is with Dolby Digital. 2 channels stereo is tonally balanced. So your comment is technically correct but irrelevant to my situation. You understood the issue backward, like most other posters on this thread.

Let me repeat it : I HAVE TOO MUCH BASS IN DOLBY DIGITAL, BUT STEREO IS OK!

What up with you guys?

I'm just letting you know where the 10dB boost is used. LFE is not always on, just where the sound track has use for it. Also, in Dolby Digital, or any surround mode, you are now pushing the bass into the mains from any other speaker you have set to small. Since you have not posted your complete setup and settings, it makes it very diffcult to troubleshoot.

The easiest solution for Outlaw would be to set up the speaker trim for each input seperately,and get rid of the 2 channel offset altogether. Actually, any pre/pro at this price range should have it anyways, IMHO.

Wow, that is odd that the 990 is missing this setting. My old Marantz A/V receiver has an LFE Level adjustment (-10 dB / 0 dB) in addition to the normal sub level adjustment. I've never had a need to set the LFE Level to -10 dB but there are obviously situations that call for it.

--Chuck

Eric,

Thought you would like to read the DTS guidelines on why they boosted the LFE by 10dBs: http://www.film-tech.com/warehouse/manuals/DTSPOSTPROD.pdf Look at page 14 and their reasoning is due to home theater room response vs. movie theater response for LFE, hence the recording difference. Also wanted to thank you for one of your posts that got me thinking why my 2 channel bass sounded a bit thin. I changed my speaker setting to large instead of small which Outlaw support suggested. Also you may want to try out a DTS sound calibration test disc to determine how well your power subs in your towers are blending with the other drivers in your speakers. I found out while calibrating my brother-in-law's Def Tech BP-2002 speakers that using his receiver's test tones for each channel wasn't fine enough to blend his powered subs to the drivers of his towers properly and produced excessive bass when movies were played. Again due to the DTS and DD standards! Those tower speakers with the powered subs seemed at bit tricky for me at times and took me a while to find the right balance for his speakers. Hopefully Outlaw Support will come out with a firmware solution that can address the problems discussed on this thread.

Slbenz

Well, a lot of things happened lately!

First I took delivery of my new XLR cables, so the Main L/R are now connected in balanced mode to my external active crossover. The additionnal 6 dB of volume I gained by using balanced interconnects will come in handy because I was lacking gain on certain low level source (some satellite channels, the turntable, etc). I used to play CDs with the volume at +6, now it's OK at 0.

Second, I checked the Firmware version. I have 3.11 04, so no update required.

Next, I reconfigured my system. I'm now feeding the sub amp by the 990's SUB out. I set the Main L/R to Small and the SUB setting automatically became YES. I set a 120Hz crossover, which is almost what I used before.

After an extensive reset of my external active crossover, I played some 2 channels music from a CD. From analog and from digital. It sounded great in both case, just like it did before, in all 2 channels modes.

I then poped the Avia test DVD and proceeded to calibrate the levels. Uppon playing a few sweep test tones, I confirmed that the 990's bass management was working as it should.

I played a Dolby Digital movie I'm familiar with the sound (Spiderman) and HURRAY! Everything sounds as it should!

I then played a Dolby Surround movie. As a french speaker, I often have to suffer Dolby Surround 2.0 soundtracks. About half of the DVD release have only 2.0 as the french dubbed soundtrack. The sound was correct and sounded like I'm used to. It was my first exposure to the II version of Pro Logic and I liked it!

As for the Outlaw support, they gave me the usual lip service about how they are working on a fix and remarked I was still within my 30 days try period and I could have a return number no problem...

In conclusion, the sound is tonally balanced for all sources in all modes. I'm way happier than 2 days ago and I will keep the 990! But I still considere it "defective" and I think the published specs and features are missleading if not outright false advertising. I do hope Outlaw post an update. What is good to be able to upgrade a device in the field if no update is actually put out! Heck, my damn GPS is updated like twice a year! In the meantime, I'd suggest avoiding the LARGE MAIN/NO SUB combinaison as it don't work as it should.

So thanks all for the help and comments. Cheer!

Post deleted, sorry!

...wanted to bump this thread again so it doesn't get lost. It seems the real heated discussion is regarding "the bug" in bypass with analog source. (which with my setup isn't an issue) This one to me would be an easier fix.

Re-stated simply: Is there a firmware update coming which will allow the 2ch sub offset to boost as well as trim? That's it, that's all I want.

Currently, when listening to music I manually raise the level to +4 or +5, then when watching a movie lower it to -4 to -8 depending on the source. It would be nice if the 990 did it on its own.