I was reading through this forum and others at work during lunch, and something struck me as odd. If you set the 970/990 to the appropriate input, why would there be a delay in signal acquisition? Maybe I got an excellent receiver some years back, but if I select CD as an example, and push play on the remote for the cd player there is no measurable delay that I can hear. The track timer comes up on the cd player and no sound is "delayed" or missing.

The recent special on the outlaws "virtual receiver" with the 7125 and the 970 (plus the tax holiday in MA) looks like a perfect event to make my jump to separates. However, I was wondering why an AV processor, that costs nearly as much as the reciever would have a delay when the reciever does not. Perhaps I am missing something here?

Thanks.

This is a byproduct of digital inputs and multiple formats - any receiver has to know what format an input is in so it can properly decode it, and it must be allowed at least a moment after the signal starts to identify that signal. In some cases, you can have an input that just assumes it will always get the same signal (such as PCM for a CD input) and avoid any signal acquisition delay, although that can still backfire (such as DTS CD's). In other cases, the receiver must have a chance to analyze the incoming signal and tell if it is PCM stereo, Dolby 2.0, Dolby 5.1, Dolby EX, DTS 5.1, DTS ES, or something else. It can be very quick, but if it will allow any of those inputs to exist then there must be at least a very short signal acquisition delay. It can be short (the 990's is easily under half a second), mild (the 970 and 1070 reportedly land at under a second), a bit on the long side (the 950 clocks in at a second or more as I recall), or even longer (Emotiva's LMC-1 reportedly can experience a 2 to 3 second delay).

Ah, I see says the blind man. Gotcha Gonk! I imagine that is what the input on the reciever is set for. It just assumes that the signal will be that of a cd.

Thanks again for the explanation!

No problem, Bob.

This clarifies my theory. I could be wrong, but I noticed an increased delay when I upgraded to the latest firmware. Which btw, fixed my "no audio" bug

I'm guessing the increased delay was part of the "no audio" bug fix. Either way, I prefer the delay over "no audio" when I switch to DVD.

It's certainly possible that the signal acquisition delay grew a bit, as it would give the processor more time to properly identify and react to the incoming signal.

I have noticed this with some receivers I've owned (Outlaw 1070 and Harman Kardon), and I find the delay annoying as it does cut into the beginning of some music and the intro on some movies. Other receivers I've owned from Yamaha, Pioneer and Denon have not had this issue.

For those experiencing delays with signal acquisition, be sure to set the "Auto-polling" feature in your source's Input Configuration menu to "OFF". Otherwise, as discussed, there will be a delay as the processor toggles between analog and digital audio inputs looking for an audio signal.

Unfortunately, I have a correction to my last posting. It seems that my "no audio bug" was not completely corrected by the latest firmware update. Occasionally, when I switch on my digital coaxial CD player and Outlaw 970 I hear nothing. I have even experienced intermittent freezes.
Thinking about this issue, I look back to my semi-conductor manufacturing equipment experience where there are inherit hardware bugs that are sometimes corrected by software tweaks. Although sometimes the software tweaks do correct the hardware bugs, many times they alleviate the problem, but do not 100% fix the problem. Rather than replace the faulty hardware because it is too costly, we would tweak the software until there was a happy median. The system hardware bugs would still sporadically occur, but very infrequently. If they did, we would have a work around embedded in the software.
I'm wondering, is this what is happening to the 970?