Hello: I just got my new toys for x-mas a 990/7125 fresh from the FedEx boys, Thanks Outlaw for the speedy delivery ordered last Sunday here by Friday Thanks. I will be setting up the 990 on Sunday lots of reading first I never had seperates. I currently have been using a Dennon 1920 DVD/CD for movies and music. I have been using the HDMI cable direct to my 52"Mitsubushi DLP and the audio to my older Yamaha 5.1 via analog audio interconnects. Is there any better way of hooking up using a optical cable to the 990 from my Dennon? Help if you may. Thanks

For DVD and CD, optical (or coaxial) is going to be the recommended audio connection. I don't recall if the Denon 1920 support DVD-Audio and/or SACD discs, but the copy protection on those two formats will force you to use the multichannel analog output to play them back.

Gonk: So if I connect the Dennon 1920 with a Digital Coax will the 990 reconize it as DVD/CD??

This player dose not support SACD. Again your prefrence would be Optical or Coax. and just to make sure before I buy a cable were talking about the audio not video right? I do have it directly linked to my DLP with HDMI!!

Thanks New Shooter

Hey New shooter, you can connect the analog or the coax/optical to the cd input on the 990 ,thats how I have my 2910 hooked up ,also welcome to the outlaw gang.

When using an optical or coaxial digital audio connection (and this is audio only), the 1920 will output a raw bitstream for both DVD's and CD's, and the 990 will take that signal, identify what it is (PCM stereo, Dolby Digital 2.0, Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital EX, DTS 5.1, DTS ES Discrete, or any of the other permutations in between), and decode it accordingly. I'd suggest double-checking your Denon's settings to make sure that the digital output is set to bitstream (also called "raw" sometimes) and not PCM. If you need help with that, let us know - I can grab the manual and figure out where that particular setting is for that player.

Another trick: I use my DVD player for both CD and DVD playback, but I prefer to only play CD's in stereo (specifically Upsample with my 990) while I prefer to use whatever surround processing might best give me full surround for my 7.1 system when playing DVD's. One way to make this a painless process is to assign the DVD player's digital input (coaxial1 for my OPPO 981HD) to both the DVD and CD inputs. The CD input is set to "Upsample" while the DVD input will do PLIIx when necessary (flagged Dolby EX and DTS ES Discrete will override that, of course, but that's OK).

Thanks Gonk I just checked out some monster cables and decided to order from Outlaw!! I guess I'm turning into a real part of the gang. One other question just to be sure when I connect the 990 to my HD DLP for OSD it should be with a S-video cable?? I just briefly looked at the manual after work today, will read it back to front on Sunday. Hey thanks to all of your support and the rest of the gang!! Gotta catch the Minnesota Wild hockey game on the HD net now!!! Thanks You All!!!

Yes, S-Video cable is what you would use to connect the 990 to the TV for on screen display purposes.

Any of the analog monitor outputs will suffice if all you are looking for is the on-screen menu: s-video, composite video, or component video. I use component video because I have a couple of analog video sources (one connected via component and one via composite) so I need the component anyway. If you have no analog video connections to the 990, then you can use whatever's handiest. A cheap composite video cable would suffice for the OSD (like the skinny cable with yellow connectors that probably came with your Denon).

Hello fellow outlaws: Had a full day on the 990/7125 married to my B&W 603's / 601 surround and the matching center speaker. As I was empressed with the 990 processor the 7125 just didn't have enough punch for my set up. Now I replaced a old Yamaha 5.1 RX V 850 old school receiver that would do the job at a volume setting about 1/2 to max. The 7125 ran at 0 Dbs on CD's and at -10 Db watching DVDs. My acoustic set up is this wood floors, room size is 19ft X 17ft vaulted ceilings several acoustical pannels from AST and one end opens up to the kitchen.I don't know what I'm going to do? I will talk with Outlaw in the AM. Hope to figure something out before X-mas. New Shooter

How did you calibrate the 990? If all of the channel trim settings are into the negative, you may be able to raise them all by the same amount and gain a bit of extra headroom.

gonk: Thanks for the reply I had them set at a +6. Have you herd that the B&W's are hard to drive? Like I stated the old Yamaha seemed like it had more punch. Not as clean by any means !! I did hear a huge difference in the clarity? I had to have my 14 year old sit down and confirm myself. I was thinking of going to the 7500 whats your thought? New Shooter

The 603 doesn't appear to be especially difficult to drive (something like 90dB efficient and an 8 ohm load). The 601's a little less efficient, but it's also serving as a surround so isn't being challenged as severely.

One funny thig here is that while position of a volume knob isn't necessarily a reliable comparison, calibrating to a reference level should be. For example - where was the Yamaha's volume control when you calibrated it? Along the same lines, what sorts of dB levels are you hitting when listening to a CD in that space with the 990's volume at 0dB?

Another odd thing is that you are running 10dB louder on CD's, when DVD soundtracks are almost exactly that much lower than CD's and cable or satellite broadcasts (even before the recent tendency for more and more CD's to be mixed "hot"). Typically, I'd expect to see DVD's running at the higher level because of this.

Am I right in taking this to mean that the 990/7125 combo was presenting greater clarity but without some of the Yammy's punch? Did you many any changes to the way you're handling bass management, like running the mains at a lower crossover point? I don't know that it would make a difference - just tossing out some thoughts.
I'd first talk to Outlaw a bit and make sure you can rule out any configuration issues. The 7500 is most definitely a beast of an amp (mine drives my Paradigms as far as I need without any strain), but it'd certainly be both cheaper and easier to stay with the 7125 if there's an easy fix...

Thanks going to sleep on it and will call Outlaw in the AM. Thanks for you help gonk!!

New Shooter

New Shooter:
I Have the 990 / 7125 combination powering my B&W 602's without any problems at all...it is plenty loud and very dynamic.

There is a problem somewhere...upgrading to a 7500 amplifier is probably not the answer.
Good luck with your call tomorrow am.
Let us know hot it turns out.

This is really a simplistic answer but are you sure when calibrating your system you have the volume set at "0"? I know I made that mistake once and thought there was something wrong with my system, took me 2 hours to figure out what I was doing wrong.

New Shooter,
The 7125 has more juice to push the B&W's.
Like gonk and others have asked - i would be interested in how you completed the setup and calibration....

I downloaded the manual for your yamaha - the calibration is a ittle different. you should have more punch from the 7125 as compaired to the tried and true yamaha.....

Later..