I am having a difficult time connecting my 7700 amp, an Anthony Gallo S.A. Amp http://www.roundsound.com/manuals/sa-manual.pdf
and the 990. The 7700 and the 990 connection are simple. The confusion is with the 990 and the S.A. Amp. Currently, I have two pre-outs on an Aragon pre-amp and everything works fine. How do I connect the S.A. amp to the 990 and could I also use a second trigger so that both amps turn on when the 990 turns on? Any help is appreciated.

Is the SA amp driving the TR-2 subwoofer? If so, I'd lean toward connecting it to the 990's subwoofer pre-amp output and letting the 7700 drive all seven full-range speakers. In that case, I'd set the SA's crossover to 200hz (as high as possible, basically) since the 990 will take care of the bass management now, or it appears that you could switch the rear panel control from "low pass" to "full range" and bypass the SA's crossover entirely. You could also set the amp to "mono" (since you only have one sub to drive), but I'm not sure which input it uses in that case (left or right) - might take a little tinkering since the manual isn't clear on this subject. If you are using the SA for something else, you can probably disregard what I just said - let us know what you intend for it to drive and we can go from there.

You could either try splitting the 990's trigger output or use the trigger 2 to turn on the SA. In the former case, you will need to make sure the split doesn't drop the trigger signal too much and cause the amps to not come on. In the latter case, you'll need to make sure to change the "Trigger 2" setting for each input from "OFF" to "ON" so that the trigger gets a signal with every input that you use (unless there are inputs where you don't want the sub active, which I doubt is the case).

Hello Gonk - The SA amp is driving the main left/right speakers, the Nucleus Reference 3.1's. The following is from the manual (to help explain)

http://www.roundsound.com/manuals/reference3-manual.pdf

--- "The lower binding posts are labeled "Sub In" -- they connect to the Nucleus Reference3 woofer's secondary voice coil - they're designed to receive power from the optional Anthony Gallo Acoustics' Reference3 SA power Amplifier. The SA amp works independently from your main amp and dramatically enhances the Nucleus Reference3's deep bass performance -- down to the range we associate with full-size subwoofers. The SA amp will allow the Nucleus Reference3's to reach 22 Hertz."

Thanks for the help with the second trigger and I will use the TR2 with the preamp SW1 output on the 990.

Ooh... I see the confusion, and I'm just now starting to get a handle on what Gallo's doing here. The SA amp is driving a separate low frequency voice coil in the main speakers, but the 7700 is powering the other drivers in the speakers (since the SA amp only supports that secondary voice coil).

If you connect the 7700 to the 990 with balanced interconnects, then you can use the unbalanced left and right outputs from the 990 to feed the SA amp, at which point you'd probably leave the settings on the SA where you had them before (probably around 40Hz for the crossover, stereo mode, and whatever phase settings worked before). You may need to adjust the SA's volume since the 990's balanced outputs will be a few dB hotter than the unbalanced outputs and you'll need to get things integrated between the secondary voice coil and the rest of the speaker because of the amp change anyway. You'll also want to set the front speakers to "large" in the 990, otherwise the SA won't get any signal low enough to make use of.

if you used the unbalanced pre-amp outputs already for the 7700, then you'll probably want to split the pre-amp outputs with a Y-adapter and connect to both the 7700 and the SA. Using balanced for the 7700 will be easier, though.

Gonk - thanks for the info. On page 17 of the 990 manual, at the top, it says "NOTE: For each channel, use either a balanced or unbalanced connection. Do not use both." I don't doubt you, but why would it say this?

I'm not Gonk, but I play one on tv. That note in the manual is for the sake of the amplifier, not the 990. I logged a request with Outlaw support about this prior to buying the 990 and they confirmed. The 990 will send a signal from both the balanced and unbalanced outputs at the same time without a problem. However, having two inputs going into the same channel of an amplifier could be bad, thus the note.

What he said...

You're still the man gonk. I just like to come through and cherry-pick some answers every now and again to stroke my ego. I then head over to a clever little thread to stroke my funny bone...

And so this post is somewhat related to the thread - those are some sweet, sweet speakers you got there Aaron.

Thanks cvinfig and gonk. What do you mean by "having two inputs going into the same channel of an amplifier could be bad" - I just received the 7700 today and unfortunately, I couldn't connect it but will tomorrow as I didn't want to get a hernia. My 10 year old and 5 year old combined weigh the same as the 7700. I absolutely love the front speakers and I believe I should receive the center/surrounds/subwoofer tomorrow. If I have to be in the office, I might as well enjoy it. I listen to the system at reference volume before 9:00 and after 5:00.

By "having two inputs going into the same channel of an amplifier could be bad" means that if your amplifier has both balanced and unbalanced inputs, you do not want to use both at the same time. The 7700 is such an amp. Even though you have to flip a switch to select either balanced or unbalanced, don't connect both. This applies to each channel - you could connect some channels with unbalanced cables and other with balanced, but don't connect both types of cables to the same channel.