Not sure what I've done wrong...

Vij, here is my best guess: The disc may have been mixed without LFE content. This isn't uncommon for multichannel music. To be sure, pop in a DVD-A/SACD that you know has subwoofer content. If that disc is as bassy as it has always been, then you have nothing to worry about. Perhaps, you could use bass management(in the player or in the receiver) to send the left & right channel lows to your subwoofer along with whatever else is running to it now. If this doesn't work, then you may be hooking up the sub with speaker wire from left & right speakers(not just LFE pre-out). In this way, you won't need to worry about the mix on each individual disc, anymore. I hope this helps. Let me know how it turns out?

Maybe you already thought of this, but did you go into the set up of your amp to tell it the sub was attached?

Try running the "sub out" lead from the DVD player directly to the

subwoofer - bypassing the receiver. Some receivers do not have bass

management capabilities in the analog inputs.

When I'm playing DVD-A or SACD I go direct. When I'm playing regular

CD's or DVD movies - I manually switch the lead and route it through

the receiver. Inelligant but it works.

Hey guys, thanks for all the responses!

L Alpert, I definitely made sure the subwoofer was switched on in my DVD's setup. I also had all the speakers set to small.

Nselson, you may be right about this particular disc being mixed without LFE. Although it does say 5.1 clearly on the cover. I went back and listened to a couple of advance resolution tracks and the receiver on "multi ch input" and the little light on my subwoofer never came on (it blinks on when it receives a signal). Then I listened to one of the DTS tracks and the receiver on digital input (I've got a crossover of 80 Hz on my receiver) and not once did the subwoofer's light come on. To be honest, I've never noticed my DVD-As nor SACDs to be terribly bassy, so I can't really compare it to anything.

But yustr may be onto something . . . I think maybe my receiver can't handle bass management when using the analog inputs, and here's why: I popped in my Blue Man Group "The Complex" DVD-A, and listened to some of the DVD-A tracks -- the subwoofer didn't receive a signal. Then I listened to a DTS track on the same disc, with my receiver accepting a digital signal and with the receiver's crossover set to 80 Hz, and sure enough, the subwoofer DID receive a signal. And the point in the song that it did receive a signal for DTS, it didn't receive a signal for DVD-A. Which makes me think that my receiver doesn't do anything with bass regarding the analog inputs. In fact, I'm sure that's it, cos I listened to that same track on DTS, but with my receiver set to multi channel input, and the sub didn't receive a signal.

Man, this sucks. This means that for SACD and DVD-A, I no longer have any bass. I don't want to hook up the sub to the front speakers with speaker wire -- I've got too much clutter back there, and it's a pain to clean. I think I'm gonna try using the bass management in my player: I'll set the fronts to "large" -- even though they go down to only 35 Hz. The centre (down to 60 Hz) and the surrounds (down to 50 Hz), I'll leave as "small". I'll try that for a while and see how that sounds. yustr, I also like your suggestion of hooking up the sub directly to the player. I'll try that too.

Thanks for all your suggestions! You guys are stellar!

cheers, vij

yustr, your suggestion of hooking the sub directly to the player -- would the sub receive much of a signal? I mean, the whole idea of using a receiver is to amplify the signal; otherwise, it's gonna be pretty weak. And I'm not sure I want to get up and manually switch it every time. It really works for you?

Yes, the sub will play fine, assuming it's a powered sub with its own

amp. (Which it has to be if it gets its feed from the "subout" of the

amp.)

And yeah its a pain to manually switch it back and forth but I don't

care to add yet another component to handle only bass management. And,

my collection of DVD-A and SACD is minimal compared to my regular CD's

and movie DVD's.

Okay. I figured it all out. I had always thought that when using the multi channel inputs, I'm bypassing everything in the receiver: all the speaker levels and distances, the crossovers, everything. I figured that in using the multi channel inputs, I'm using only the settings on the player. So imagine my surprise when I go back to my receiver, increase the gain on the sub . . . and see the subwoofer blinking on when using the multi channel inputs. (I'm not proud of being this stupid. Really I'm not.)

The weird thing was, the settings I had previously worked very very nicely with movies and DTS music, as well as 2-channel music. I guess now I have to up the gain on my sub whenever playing hi-res music (I'll check later to see by how much). What a pain! But at least now I know.

Thanks again, everyone. I feel like a total bo-bo head on this one.

cheers, vij