While I know that one of the beta testers (RAF) is doing this, I personally would only put the ICBM before the 950, never ever after it. Follow:

The signal coming into the 950 goes through processing that includes bass management and time alignment. If your speakers are not all the same distance from your seating position, then the time alignment will compensate by applying appropriate delays to each set of channels. Now, if you apply bass management to those channels after the delays are incorporated, you could be asking for trouble.

Just one example: imagine taking the bass from your small fronts and small surrounds and outputting the combined result via the sub out. If the front and surround channels have different delays applied to their respective signals, they may then end up out of phase (slightly or severly) with each other when their bass info is combined. This can cause all sorts of re-inforcing and cancellations (bass peaks & dips) in the sub channel output. Now imagine combining the bass from each group of channels (fronts, centre, surrounds, LFE) each with its own delay, and you have the recipe for a possible sonic mess. Not a good idea, IMHO.

Which is why it's always better to have bass management before time alignment; or in this case, have the ICBM before the 950.

Also, if you do use 2 subs, you'll have to make sure they are the same exact distance from the listening position since you can't level match and time align them independently.

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Sanjay

[This message has been edited by sdurani (edited February 14, 2002).]