Based on a couple of questions I saw on avsforum, I did some additional testing of the analog outputs on Panasonic's DMP-BD80 Blu-ray player and confirmed a rather odd behavior. The complaint was that users were getting no output from the subwoofer channel of the multi-channel analog outputs, specifically when listening to CDs (2-channel stereo recordings).

If you've set your front speakers to LARGE in the BD80's speaker configuration screen, then this is actually expected behavior because CDs do not have a ".1" LFE channel. All bass is contained in the Left/Right channels. But if you have set your front speakers to SMALL (because you have smaller bookshelf or satellite speakers in your system), then the bass (everything below 100 Hz) *should* be re-directed to the subwoofer channel. This actually does work properly for multi-channel recordings (DVD, Blu-ray, DTS CD, etc.) but it does NOT work properly for 2-channel recordings. The bass is simply thrown out.

Panasonic has confirmed this behavior and told us that it's actually in the player spec and has been since the BD50. So this problem affects the DMP-BD50, DMP-BD55 and DMP-BD80 players. They tell me they will change this in the next generation players (Spring, 2010?) but it looks like it is not something they will be able to do with a firmware upgrade to current players.

My recommendation, for those who are using the multi-channel analog outputs of the Panasonic players because their receiver or processor lacks HDMI audio support, would be to also connect the fiberoptic or coax digital output from the BD80 (or the BD50 or BD55) to an available digital input on your receiver and use this input for CDs and for DVDs, and use the multi-channel analog output for Blu-ray Discs only.

Note that if your front speakers are set to LARGE in the player, then this does not affect you as the front speakers will get all the bass. Also, if you are using the HDMI, fiberoptic or coax digital outputs it also does not affect you. This only occurs for those who are using the multi-channel analog outputs of the player, with their front speakers set to SMALL on the player. And it only affects 2-channel recordings.

For those having difficulties getting *ANY* bass output out of the Panasonic or any other brand's Blu-ray player over the multi-channel outputs, even for multi-channel DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, I'd recommend reading Peter O'Connell's tutorial on the subject:

How To Set up a Blu-ray Player Using Multi-Channel Analog Outputs... And Why: BigPictureBigSound

Hope this helps some people, now or in the future.

-CB