If anyone plans to use a Mac Mini (or any Apple computer so far as I can gather) with an Outlaw 990, note that the 990 will not detect a DTS audio signal from the Mac.

I've brought this to Scott's attention and offered to lend them a Mac Mini to test with, but they didn't take me up on it. There seems to be no reason to believe a fix will appear for this issue in the near future.

Strangely, the 990 detects DTS from my Sony DVD and Toshiba HD-DVD players, and my Onkyo TX-SR600 receiver detects DTS from the Apple Mac Mini. But getting the Mac and 990 to play well together with DTS seems like a no go.

- Jason

Gonk,
Any idea how the Burr Browns in the SqueezeBox compare to the DAC's in the 990?

Your suggestion of two M2200's plus the SqueezeBox looks like the most practical solution. I could just stick with my Adcom pre-amp for now.

The SqueezeBox uses TI's PCM1748 DACs which resolve to 24 bit 96kHz while the 990 uses Analog Device's AD1852 DACs that resolve to 24 bit 192kHz.

Slbenz

Ah, I see. So the DAC in the 990 is twice as good.

I wouldn't say that 192khz is twice as good as 96khz in practical terms, but they will be better, yes.

Sorry, mine was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek reply.

Based on a little "research" today I'm still not sure about SqueezeBox vs. Apple TV. For streaming songs from an imac to a 990 the differences seem to be:

SqueezeBox doesn't require the TV to display menu/song playing (although TV might display more information)

Apple TV has a hard drive (could this prevent possible hiccup problems with wireless connection?)

SqueezeBox has a better DAC (not so important if using the 990 DAC)

The hard drive won't help you when streaming from the iMac.

It would only help you if you put content directly on it.

SqueezeBox also allows you to stream Pandora, which can be a cool added feature, plus out of the box SqueezeBox handles a lot more codecs (FLAC for instance) than Apple TV.

Gonk,
How would a two-channel plus powered sub set-up work with the 990? When playing CD's (using analog out to the 990) could I bypass all digital on the 990 and effectively have what I have now with the Adcom pre/amp, amp and powered sub? Or is this the very bybass issue that is being discussed in various other topic forums?

There are a couple issues there. First, yes, the bass management issue being discussed is I believe related largely to the analog bypass mode (haven't been all that active in that discussion, as it doesn't relate to the way I'm using the 990). Second, there is no analog bass management in the 990, so when you bypass the DSP section you must chose to either have no sub or to have double bass (the sub gets a summed full range copy of the left and right channels while left and right continue to get a full range signal).

While I am certainly very fond of my 990, I just wonder if a full-blown surround processor is the ideal pre-amp for a two-channel music system?