When I start playing a cd, the sound doesn't start until just slightly after the first track starts. Sometimes this results in the first beat of the first song getting cut off.

I'm not sure if this behavior is from the 990 or my oppo 981HD dvd player.

Does anyone know if this is normal, and if so, can it be adjusted?

The 990 is acquiring the digital signal and determining the format that it is in (PCM stereo, Dolby Digital 2.0, Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1, etc.) so that it can decode it properly. This is normal behavior.

Thanks gonk,

For 2-speaker music listening, do you still prefer upsample with the digital connection?

More newbie thoughts...

I'm thinking that there ought to be a CD-stereo mode that pre-sets the decoding to avoid the lag. I wonder if the concern was that for other source types such as movies, you could have a situation where there would be no sound at all in the CD-stereo-only mode?

Is this a characteristic of most HT processors? If so it suggests a simple preamp setup might be better for just music.

This is an annoying problem for me as well. I have read reviews of other pre/pros that cost much more that have this same problem. It is too bad there wasn’t a way to “lock” in a particular mode for CD playback so the processor wouldn’t have to decide which mode to use. One thing that does eliminate the problem is to use an analog connection for the CD player.

The problem is common to all surround processors and receivers. In fact, the 990's delay is on the fast side compared to some. Products based on the older 49300 can take noticeably longer (Outlaw's old Model 950 took around 1.5 to 2 seconds, depending on the signal type, and Emotiva's LMC-1 takes 2 to 3 seconds). It's a pesky side effect of the broad array of possible digital signals available to us.
The Model 950 did include something like this, as you could "lock" a given input on a certain surround mode. The 990 dropped this, as I believe did the 1070/970. This was likely due in part to the faster acquisition time, but part of it was also likely a reaction to fears about users getting messed up by it. Cable and satellite receivers both offer an assortment of possible signals (especially when you toss HD into the mix), DVD's can carry every possible format and routinely employ at least two different formats just to get the movie going (menus use Dolby 2.0 most of the time), game consoles and media players are just as bad as DVD's about being impossible to pin down, and even the trusty CD can potentially throw DTS at you as well as PCM stereo. I don't know what you would hear if you decoded DTS as PCM, but you would either get nothing at all or you'd get an incoherent noise that could potentially inflict damage on speakers if the volume was too high at the time.
True - you can avoid the problem by using an analog input, assuming that the CD player itself doesn't have any such delay. A CD player is likely designed solely to work with standard audio CD's, in which case it'll work fine with PCM stereo but probably can't play DTS CD's at all (no DTS decoder). A DVD player used for CD playback may still have the problem, though, just at a different place in the signal path.

Yes, I do.

this is a simple solution to this problem.. use a CD player instead of a DVD player to listen to music. CD players are pretty inexpensive these days.

I have a Marantz CC4300 5 disc carousel CD player for music. No cutting off any notes on my music listening.

I presume that you are connecting via analog, Skyblazer - right?

Actually gonk, a CD player will play back DTS CD's but if your receiver/prepro doesn't decode the bitstream all you will hear is a horrible speaker blowing digital screech.

mike

yes i use analog connections on my CD player.

I use digital (coax) connections from my Pioneer DV578A and like you, MWR0707, I complained here and learned the same thing. Now I live with it as a moderate nuisance, though I agree it would be nice if the processor could simply start in CD mode. Unfortunately, as Gonk told me, if the disc signal is in some other mode there could be a burst of noise that would be a lot worse than silence. Some tracks, on the classical music I usually play, begin with a couple of seconds of silence, which is long enough for the 990 to lock on to the signal.
But wouldn't it be possible to make a remote macro procedure that would respond to the "play" command by (1) mute, (2) play disc, (3) wait 2 or 3 seconds, (4) stop, (5) unmute, (6) restart track 1? Of course if the user intended to play some other track the macro would have to store that track signal first and then repeat it as the last step.
Does anybody know of a remote that has this capability, including storing the desired track?

The Philips Pronto can do that. You could create as many macros as you want and they can include delays. The Pronto is completely customizable. I may have to play around with that.

I am prety sure you could do this with the Harmony remote also. Jim

Any remote with macro capabilities could do this (Harmony, Universal MX's, Pronto, ...).

Thanks for the suggestion regarding a dedicated CD player with analog connection. That sounds like the best option so far.

mwr0707,
another good reason for using a CD player for your CD listening.. they sound better in most cases than a DVD player will.

I know there is debate about this.. but especially in the DVD player that are sold for under say like $250 category.. a dedicated CD player will usually beat it soundwise.

I use a dedicated CD player also, an older Sony 5 disc carousel, Sony CDP-545, that sounds great and no lag but I do have it connected via optical.

Interesting, I wonder if the decoding process is different for a digital input associated with the CD source?

The signal acquisition has to operate the same way because there's no way to know what signal might crop up. The 990's acquisition is generally pretty speedy, though, and so on some discs (those with a little "dead space" at the start of the first track) it's effectively impossible to identify the lag. There may be some dedicated CD players that start a PCM signal before starting the disc, I suppose, but I don't think either of the ones I've used via digital output did.

agreed, that's why i used analog RCA's. no lag time. :p

I created a macro on my Pronto remote to start CD play that eliminates missing the first note of the first track. Here are the steps in the macro that worked for me. Thanks psyprof1 for the idea.

Mute
Wait 0.1 second [had to put this in because the 990 wasn’t seeing the previous mute]
Play
Wait 6 seconds [my player takes a long time to start playing]
|<< [Skip back to beginning of song]
Mute [un-mute 990]

At first I tried the following but I was still missing the first note sometimes.

Mute
Play
Wait a few seconds
Stop
Play
Mute

wow... i don't know anything about macros. but that seems like a lot to go thru just to listen to a CD.

i just turn on my system and put a cd in and press play.. and in no time i got tunes.. no macros needed. Although, I do like those Ho Ho's

That's the magic of macros. You put in those commands once and then perform the multiple functions by just pushing one button.

For example I turn on my 990/7700 & Sammy 5054 & STB with the push of one button. Or I have a macro setup to immediatley go to music listen mode with the push of one button.

Can also switch to DVD watching mode with the push of one button and back to Sat TV viewing with the push of one button. I love macros.

Regarding using analog output form the CD plsyer,
This works great if you've got a really good CD player. Unless you've got pretty close to a grand invested there, you'll probably find that CDs sound better using the 990's DACs than the ones in the CD player. Loosing the first couple of notes on the first track is aggravating, but the alternative isn't great either.

I think I already know the answer to this, but... is this delay then common to all digital sources? I just ordered a squeezebox (it was cheaper than another multidisk cd changer and mine is full) and thought I would start ripping music lossless flac...

i think if your digital media is already on a hard drive, there should not be any delay. the delay comes in the laser reading the digital information and deciding how it should read the tracks on the disc.

There is a delay at the receiver or processor for any digital source (be it digital cable, satellite, DVD, CD, or a media player like the Squeezebox) because the processor has to determine what sort of signal it is receiving.

Thanks as always . Perhaps I can find an easy way to edit the digital files to include a few seconds of blank lead time for the first track...

You could always stick a short (two second) empy file at the front of each playlist...

I have an Adcom CD player using an MIT Reference Digital RCA cable conected to the the 990.
I have the 990 in Upsample mode for CD audio.
To me, it has the best sound than Bypass or Stereo.

really though.. just use analog RCA"s instead of digital cables if it's a problem. simple and inexpensive solution.. unless your RCA's are the expensive type.