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...