The plot thickens!

Man, I appreciate the tech support here and especially from you, Gonk. My feeble mind has a problem digesting all this.

I phoned Anthem tech support and as long as the 990 is in standby (off with the remote), that means the Anthem's auto input selectivity switch will sense an XLR input. This means that if I want to drive the amp, directly, with the ZD, with a pair of single ended cables, then, I have to either pull all five XLR cables or hit the kill switch on the back of the 990 (which given its location, is not easy to do).

If I hit the kill switch, on the back of the 990, will this cause me to lose my setup configurations, over time?

Also, he talked about another, safer solution, using something called "unity gain" (Ok, means zip to me). As I understand him, I'd have the two channel preamp feed the amp through the 990 (meaning the single ended cables from the ZD would attach to the 990 and feed through the XLR cables to the amp). To do this, however, he said that "unity gain" is required. What does this mean? Is this doable?

Or, is he saying the L and R 990 channels would pass through the ZD and then to amp (ZD in the middle)? I'm confused! lol

Any and all information much appreciated and thanks,

John