How do you all work around the multi analog issue of bypassing bass management?

[Diamond Dog]

I have a B&K Reference 50 (no HDMI inputs). I just recently purchased a Sony S1000ES Blu Ray and upgraded to Blu Ray mostly for the sound (new DTS HD & Dolby HD formats).

When I hook the Blu Ray up, I use the multi analog inputs for those new formats and a Toslink for the lossy DD and DTS formats.

As I understand it, when I watch a movie with HD audio it can only be played through the multi analog inputs which bypasses all my bass management, electronic cross overs, bass steering, notch filters, etc.. This seems disappointing because I believe (unless someone corrects me) that this is one of the reasons the B&K Reference 50 sounds so good. When in this mode, I also have to switch the crossover switch to "on" on my subwoofer because all the bass management is being bypassed and then switch it back "off" when listening to DTS or DD.

Do you guys have a better workaround other than manually turning the subwoofer crossover on and off all the time? Are you guys all OK with loosing all the processing features of your receivers/preamps when you use multichannel inputs?

Is there a better solution (besides upgrading my Reference 50 to one that has HDMI)?

[MrBoylan]

I have a B&K Reference 50 (no HDMI inputs). I just recently purchased a Sony S1000ES Blu Ray and upgraded to Blu Ray mostly for the sound (new DTS HD & Dolby HD formats).

When I hook the Blu Ray up, I use the multi analog inputs for those new formats and a Toslink for the lossy DD and DTS formats.

As I understand it, when I watch a movie with HD audio it can only be played through the multi analog inputs which bypasses all my bass management, electronic cross overs, bass steering, notch filters, etc.. This seems disappointing because I believe (unless someone corrects me) that this is one of the reasons the B&K Reference 50 sounds so good. When in this mode, I also have to switch the crossover switch to "on" on my subwoofer because all the bass management is being bypassed and then switch it back "off" when listening to DTS or DD.

Do you guys have a better workaround other than manually turning the subwoofer crossover on and off all the time? Are you guys all OK with loosing all the processing features of your receivers/preamps when you use multichannel inputs?

Is there a better solution (besides upgrading my Reference 50 to one that has HDMI)?

Most if not all Blu-ray players with multi-channel analog outputs have bass management, level adjustment, and delay adjustment. It's just more limited than what you find in most receivers. If your player has a speaker configuration screen for adjusting the multi-channel outputs, and it has the option to set the speakers to small, then the player has bass management. The player engages its own internal electronic crossover (which is usually fixed at either 80 Hz or 100 Hz) to prevent any low bass frequencies from being sent to any speakers set to "small." Normally the player will reroute this bass to the subwoofer channel.

You don't have to turn your subwoofer's crossover on and off. The player does not send full frequency signals to your subwoofer. The only thing that really usually needs to be adjusted differently for analog vs. digital inputs is the subwoofer gain (level). If your preamp/processor or receiver does not have a separate gain or sensitivity adjustment for the subwoofer channel of the multi-channel analog input, then you might need to boost the gain (the volume dial) on the subwoofer itself to at or near the max in order to get a decent amount of bass, then re-calibrate the receiver's digital inputs so that you reduce the bass level when playing digital sources. In many cases this will allow you to get one set of subwoofer settings that will work for both digital and multi-channel analog inputs.

If you have't already read our tutorial on setting up multi-channel inputs/outputs then definitely check it out:

How to set up a Blu-ray player using multi-channel analog outputs (and why)

Also, if all else fails (and assuming your subwoofer has speaker level inputs), then you could opt to wire the subwoofer via speaker level inputs instead, which would then mean you would set the subwoofer channel to "OFF" both in the player and the receiver. The subwoofer would then get its bass from the main left/right channel speaker outputs of the receiver and you would also not have any drastic bass level discrepancies between digital and analog inputs.

-CB