Asking most home theater/audio sales guys for technical details on a product they sell is like asking a blind man how many fingers you are holding up.

Most of the people (like Gonk and others) here know way more than pretty much any salesperson you will meet.

In my experience, for most sales people, it's their job and not their passion, so other than learning the surface details about the products, they don't really go deeper than that.

Exceptions exist, but are not the norm.

I would expect that the Integra prepro will be pretty good at 2 channel, at least as good as the 990. It will be transparent. It will not make a crappy recording sound good and will not make a great recording sound crappy. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say. I'm basing this on my experiences with the 990 and my Integra Research RDC-7.1.

What we really need is a definitive answer as to whether or not it has an analog bypass, since then it is just passing the signal on. Even the 970 does a good job with analog bypass.

If they say that it is an analog bypass,it probably is just that. However, the signal still would be going through a heck of a lot of switching ICs, coupling capacitors, Op-Amps, and of course the digitally controlled volume control (which is analog, but controlled digitally).

A home theater preamp is never going to have as clean a signal path (i.e. fewer active stages, little or no solid state switching, little or no coupling capacitors)as a regular dedicated pure-analog stereo preamp.

They don't say anywhere that I have seen and so far we are only guessing that it "probably" has analog bypass.

I was told they're not better than the 990, for two channel, analogue mode, by someone else; but, beyond that, don't remember the details (which is why I didn't mention it). The first fellow was a retailer/installer, who dables in these things for himself, rotates through equipment via Audiogon (sold an Anthem D2).

Anyone serious about 2-channel music should be sure they know what they're getting before they buy in.

Also, if you're interested in surround modes, I think you still need to buy high-end to get the music algorithms outside of Dolby labs.

The 990 currently satisfies me and so I plan to wait it out (if you're patient and wise, I think this the best approach). In fact, I may even split the system in two and use my Zana Deux as a preamp for two channel, the 990 for everything else.

John

It has analog bypass, 2 modes in fact, which can be applied to most or all sources. To quote the manual:

"Direct - in this mode audio from the input source is output directly with minimal processing, providing high fidelity reproduction. All of the source's audio channels are output as they are."

My understanding from this is that speaker distance delay, and level settings are applied, and nothing else, no bass management, re-eq or anything else.

the other mode:

"Pure Audio - In this mode, the display and video circuitry are turned off, minimizing possible noise sources for the ultimate in high-fidelity audio reproduction. (As the video circuitry is turned off, only the HDMI outputs output video)."

This latter obviously disables the front display, which becomes active for about 2 seconds if you do a volume change.

As I said, I do not have any analog sources hooked up (besides a Dish SD DVR), but I can tell you my impressions with the digital sources. From eq'ed and BM'ed to direct, there is a definite and noticeable improvement in the quality, and I pretty much immediately notice when I have forgotten to put it in that mode, which is often as I am using the PS3 for so many different things. For pure mode, the difference is a little more subtle coming from plain direct. I can detect it pretty easily if I am playing back an SACD, but with CDs, it depends on the quality of the disc.

Note, I believe the Integra does NOT have the Pure audio mode as the Onkyo Pro does, it is one of the 3 differences between the units (rack ears, hinged front plate and pure mode all on the Onkyo Pro) that explain the $200 RP difference.

The manual states these modes can both be applied to the mch analog input, but is not clear if they are also applicable to the other 2 ch analog inputs. However, I am virtually certain they also work on those inputs, as the discussion at AVS indicates they do, and when I engage them for my Dish DVR, they do activate as opposed to giving a "not available" message.

Still, I would reiterate that at this point, I'd wait and see what the Outlaws have and give them a shot at your purchase. I have had mine for about 10 months now, as my system needed full HDMI capability to do what I wanted last year. If it had been a matter of two months, I would sure want to see how things compared.

BB

Oh, I will add that I was not impressed performance of my system when playing DVD-As through my Oppo 971H into the mch analog input of the Onkyo. However, since i never used the Oppo into my 950's mch input because it was dedicated to my older SACD player, I cannot say for certain if it is the Oppo's performance here or the Onkyo Pro's. If any of you are familiar with whether the 971 has passable analog outputs, that would help assign the "blame" and give us a data point.

BB

The 971H's multichannel analog output was something of an afterthought - even OPPO admitted taht pretty readily - so it may not be the best test of the processor's abilities since the 971H is contributing heavily to the overall sound.

If you are looking for DVD-A/SACD support with the 9.8 or Onkyo Pro 885, you might want to look at something like the 980H. At that point, you could even compare multichannel analog to HDMI digital (being sure to set the 980H's output resolution to at least 720p because of some bandwidth allocation foibles inherent in the HDMI spec). The 980H's analog output is a good bit better than the 971H's.

Thanks. I only have 3 DVD-As though, so I wasn't really looking to buy another component just to improve the quality on those. The PS3 does a stunning job on SACD.

So I guess I am not really in a position to comment on the analog bypass of the unit at the moment. If I have occasion to hook some other analog source into the unit in the next month or so I will post my impressions.

BB