Having owned the 2900 I know of no method to set up the player for two channel playback without the aid of a monitor. You can, however, do the set up in a room with a monitor and then move the unit to your two channel room. The player will retain the settings performed in the first room.

Thanks Jan - but I dunno. I brought in a TV and S-video'd it to the Denon in order to select the 2CH program from a Talking Heads Dual Disc. No problem. But when I attempted to play the disc days later w/o the aid of the TV the default playback mode was MultiChannel and no logical (or illogical) sequence of button pushes could get me back to 2CH.

Here's my solution. I bought a 5" LCD monitor off eBay and use it for format/menu etc. on the players that are in the main system, the one without a big monitor. Cost me $65 and well worth it for the convenience.

Another solution is to get one of those small portable DVD players as long as it has a video input.

Kal

Thanks Kal. Was hoping to avoid it - but it seems a cheapo mini-monitor might be necessary.

I don't believe "selecting" two channel will suffice. Did you go into the set up menu and make two channel the default operation? I no longer have the 2900 so I can't check what options you have available but that was how I had to set up my player for strictly two channel output.

You can set the 3910 to output in 2 channel only by going to the audio setup menu, selecting audio, and changing the default multichannel setting to 2CH(SRS OFF), however I don't believe this has anything to do with the unit selecting the 2 channel Hi res layer from a DVD-A or the 2 channel Lo or HI res layer from a hybrid SACD.

Obviously you will only be outputing 2 channels. No different than the way you are connected at the moment.

I have never had mine setup or connected this way and I use the DLINK connection which has different settings or otherwise I would test it for you.

Give it a try, perhaps Jan knows something we don't.

I question if one would not in fact be getting some type of downmix if the proper layer on the disc is not selected.

RG

Quote:
Obviously you will only be outputing 2 channels. No different than the way you are connected at the moment.

Well, here's where part of the confusion of the hi-rez formats gets in the way. Most SACD's and, I believe, DVD-A's have separate tracks for the two channel mix (usually Redbook CD) and the hi-rez multichannel tracks. From what I understand some SACD's may have hi-rez two channel tracks which offer a separate mix distinct from the multichannel mix. Getting the Denon to always default to the hi-rez tracks while outputting only two channel sound was, if I remember correctly, a pain.

I'm not sure about the 2900, but I believe the 3910 may have been the first Denon to include a button on the front panel and remote that allows the user to toggle between the redbook, Hi-Res 2 channel and Hi-Res Multi channel layers of hybrid SACDs, thereby taking the pain out of that format.

Why they and others haven't figured out a way to handle DVD-A similiarly is beyond me.

And yes, the two channel and multi-channel mixes are different.

RG

Quote:
You can set the 3910 to output in 2 channel only by going to the audio setup menu, selecting audio, and changing the default multichannel setting to 2CH(SRS OFF), however I don't believe this has anything to do with the unit selecting the 2 channel Hi res layer from a DVD-A or the 2 channel Lo or HI res layer from a hybrid SACD.

RG

This is correct and the rub, RG. Simply Selecting 2CH in the Audio set-up does not 'trickle down' to selecting the 2CH Stereo (vs 5.1MC) Layer on the DVD-A. And although SACD layers are easy to select via buttons on the front panel, as mentioned, it seems the ONLY way to select the 2CH layer of a DVD-A is via a monitor. Happily, I found a solution: Elgato's EyeTV Hybrid . This little gizmo allows me to input the 3910's S-Video output to my PowerBook via USB. Works like a charm.
Thank you all for your thoughtful input!