Not being able to assign cross/speaker settings to inputs has started to become a problem for me (one of the few remaining flaws I see in the 990). Before it did not bother me, because I kept the fronts set small, even during 2 ch music. I found with rocket 750 sigs, mixing in the sub worked best. Now that I have a pr of av123 Mini-Stratas, I find keeping them set at large without a sub for 2 ch is the most pleasing sound. However, for HT use, they work much better set at small crossed at 40 hz. You can see the issue....I constantly need to check in the setup menu to make sure the spkrs are set correctly. I have mitigated this some, by creating a macro on my MX-850 remote, that will change the spkr size with the following sequence: menu, arrow down, arrow down, select, right arrow, menu....and it works o.k., but since there is nothing in the 990's front display (that I can see) to distinguish large from small spkrs, I still find myself needing to check the settings in the setup to verify what the speaker setting is currently at. I thought I found a decent compromise, by having the sub to none with the large setting, but I can't seem to get it to default to this. What would work perfectly is if there are discrete codes for setting the spkr size to either small or large, without having to toggle it. Are there discrete codes for this?

thanks,

There is not a discrete code for the bass management setting on front speakers. Have you tried using large mains with the sub set to L/R+SUB? You may still want to turn the sub off when listening to music, but I can think of a few options for that (flipping the sub's power switch if it's convenient, or maybe getting a remote controlled audio switch with one input on the 990's sub output and one input empty).

Thanks for the reply Gonk, but not sure I follow you. I don't want the mini stratas to get a full range signal when using the system for HT purposes. Thought there might be some low freq in movies that the mini stratas won't do too well with. I may have finally figured out how to use the sub icon in the 990 front screen to verify what the front spkr size is. It seems that as long as I am in bypass mode (which I use for all 2 channel), then the sub icon toggles off when fronts are set as large, and toggles on when they are set as small.

If you are crossing them over around 40Hz anyway for movies, my thought was that they were likely to be rolling off below there and would not contribute enough to the overall sound to create a "double bass" condition, and with the sub in the mix they'd be basically out of the way. It's entirely possible that this scheme would not sound as good as what you are doing currently, but if it did it would make the system less tedious to use when switching between the two modes.

Tonight tried your suggestion while watching transformers. Actually, I was not very happy with the way the audio track was sounding, so I started mucking with some settings, and LRG mains, and sub L/R +sub, seemed to improve things quite a bit in the soundtrack. I will try it out with a few more movies, and if all goes well am going to leave it like that. It definitely is much easier to manage, especially since I have a passive SVS sub, keeping the sub out of the mix for 2 ch is very simple, just don't flick the power switch on the amp it shares with the center....this may work out nicely, Thanks Gonk.