Do you mean the 950's analog crossover? More and more players are coming out with DVD-A/SACD bass management. These players do DVD-A/SACD bass management digitally, before the DAC. It's better for bass management (and perhaps more flexible) than the 950's fixed analog crossover.

There's an additional problem with the 950. As you probably know, the 950 adds double bass to full bandwith analog signals. It's a known bug. A player with DVD-A/SACD bass management expects the pre/pro to pass the full bandwidth without double bass. But the 950 can't do this unfortunately.

If you get a player that does DVD-A/SACD bass management, it probably won't work right on the 950, due to its double bass bug.


[This message has been edited by Will (edited August 14, 2002).]

Will - Thanks for taking the time to give me the info, but I have a different need for the bass management. In my system, I have four 18 inch subwoofers, two per side, operating in true stereo. I crossover them with an analog crossover in line with the main left and right speakers at 60 hz. This way, I always get good, stereo sub-bass no matter what the source; stereo, 5.1 or directly through my mixing console (I use the system as a reference tool for mastering movie soundtracks). On the Preamp/Processor, I set it up with my front Left/Right as "big" and all other speakers as "small" and set their crossover to 60 Hz. But what is important, and what the Rotel does not do, and the Outlaw does do, is send the bass from all the "small" speakers to only the front left and right speakers. That way, no matter what the source, the bass always is reproduced correctly. I *can* direct bass to the center and surrounds if need be as they are actually very large professional type theatre speakers, but directing all the bass to the 18 inch subs works the best and is the most transparent to whatever source I'm playing. In addition to the mono bass in the ".1" bass of movie soundtracks, there can be, and is, stereo bass information in the main left and right channels of movie soundtracks. By the way, I truly believe that stereo sub-bass is important, especially for reproducing well recorded, naturally miked orchestral music. There *are* phase differences present in the pickups of widely spaced microphones in the bass region, and stereo subs preserves this. It presents a more convincing 'you are there' type feel to the ambience in music. You should try to hear a system with stereo subs if you can.

[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited August 14, 2002).]

Soundhound - cool!!! How do you get the ".1" information to the subs though??

Cary

First of all, you need to have two subwoofers, one positioned next to each of your front left and right speakers. Run the signal from the preamp/processor left and right front outputs to the subwoofer's line in jacks for each channel. Set the subwoofer's crossover to 60 or 80 Hz, depending on the size of your mains. Run the line level output of the subwoofer to your main left and right front power amplifier. Set the preamp/processor bass management for the subwoofer to "no subwoofer". Set the front left and right speakers to "large", the center and surrounds to "small". **If you have the Outlaw preamp/processor or the Sony EP9ES like I do, all the bass, including the ".1" will be directed to the stereo subwoofers along with any natural stereo bass information and the upper range will go to your main left and right fronts. Of course this assumes that your subwoofers have a built-in line level crossover that has a high-passed output to feed the power amplifier for the main speakes. In my installation, I use passive subs, with an external analog crossover network and a dedicated power amp for the subwoofers, but a sub with a built-in amplifier and line level "in and out" crossover would accomplish the same thing. Good luck!

[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited August 14, 2002).]

I'm glad this solution works for you. While you can run the output of your pre/pro first to your sub's analog crossover, and then back to your amplifier, and then on to your main speakers, I'd rather use the digital crossover in a modern pre/pro's, especially for the MAIN speaker channels. Modern pre/pro's have much cleaner bass management than the analog line level crossovers in a subwoofer. And there is the (I assume) long analog signal path from pre/pro to subwoofer to amplifier (to main speakers) to consider. But bottom line is this works for you, and that's what's important. I'm glad you have a solution that works for you.


The 60 Hz and 80 Hz digital crossover in modern pre/pro's is quite good. The bass managment in modern pre/pro's is much better than bass management I heard from some receivers only a few years ago. Of course a few years ago, many didn't even have 60 Hz crossovers.

[This message has been edited by Will (edited August 14, 2002).]

SoundHound,

Do you have any pictures of your setup? I for one would be interested in viewing your system.

------------------
Benjamin King
benjaminking@yahoo.com

surrounded,

are you saying that most pre/pros don't reidect LFE to the mains if no sub is selected?


brianca.

If "no subwoofer" is selected, the Rotel for instance looses the ability (according to their tech person) to select the crossover frequency for the re-directed bass, and the bass is simply re-directed to ALL speakers at a fixed frequency of 80Hz. If you have a single sub connected to the LFE out of your preamp/processor and the subwoofer "on" in the preamp menu, then there's no problem. I'm sure that the manufacturers didn't want to touch the complication of stereo subs since connecting all the components is difficult enough to most people as-is.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Will:
[B] [QUOTE]
I'm glad this solution works for you. While you can run the output of your pre/pro first to your sub's analog crossover, and then back to your amplifier, and then on to your main speakers, I'd rather use the digital crossover in a modern pre/pro's, especially for the MAIN speaker channels. Modern pre/pro's have much cleaner bass management than the analog line level crossovers in a subwoofer. And there is the (I assume) long analog signal path from pre/pro to subwoofer to amplifier (to main speakers) to consider. But bottom line is this works for you, and that's what's important. I'm glad you have a solution that works for you.

[QUOTE]

The crosover I use is not in my subwoofers - they're completely passive. The crossover is right next to the power amplifiers in my rack, so there is no long-interconnect issue. Don't knock analog crossovers! They can be just as good or better and doing it digitally if the electronic components within the crossover are of very good quality, like polystryene capacitors for instance.

Soundhound, thanks for the clarification. That's a better solution than using the crossover in most subwoofers, or having long-interconnects, for sure! One knock heard about passive analog crossovers is they mess up the phase as a function of frequency. Anyway, good luck!


[This message has been edited by Will (edited August 14, 2002).]