Hello again;
What i had was the s550 to coax and avr to multi-channel which gave me only two channels. Now that I have every thing correct the db are still low in multi-channel compared to dd/dts. Like you said Gonk the multi-channel is pass-through and thats probably why. The 10 days that I had the 990, i was able to hear a much cleaner and more detail sound then the onkyo 797 so i can only imagin how much better the new formats will sound going thru the 997.
Thanks for the info Ramon