Quote:
Originally posted by gonk:
There are others around here with more technical background into bass management, but I can give you the layman's summary. The ICBM offers essentially the same control over crossover points as the HK's triple crossover (a little more, actually, as it adds a control for surround back as well as stereo subwoofers). The 950's analog bass management is a scaled down version of the ICBM, with only a single fixed 80Hz crossover. In the digital domain, of course, the 950 has bass management that is functionally almost identical to the HK's.

The reason for Outlaw's use of analog bass management in lieu of digital management such as HK's is the necessity for A-D-A conversion. DVD-Audio and SACD are as good as they are in part because of the high resolution digital source and the digital to analog conversion process used at the player. Converting back to digital degrades the sound quality, at least somewhat, and converting back to analog a second time doesn't help matters.

Bottom line: the HK's digital bass management is convenient, but unless there is a great deal of design effort and equipment cost invested in the A-D-A converters used at the receiver it will not provide as good a final product as performing the bass management in the analog domain. If you've already got a receiver and DVD-Audio player, the ICBM would be an excellent fit (and for less than a new receiver would cost).



Not to mention the fact that the advantage of HiRez (96-192/24) is lost, as most digital bass management that I've seen is done at 44-48/16, making the final output equivalent to CD.