Performance
The 915’s six outputs consist of front, rear, and non-fading preamp outputs. The front and rear outs have defeatable high-pass filters with selectable cutoff frequencies of 40, 60, 80, 100, 120, 150, 180, and 220 Hz. The non-fading outs have defeatable low-pass filters with cutoff frequencies of 50, 80, and 120 Hz. This provides the option of running either six full range outs or custom-filtered front/rear/subwoofer outputs. In most cases, performance from the front/rear outputs was slightly better than from the non-fading outs, but both sections were capable of delivering more than the advertised 4.5 volts of output. All of the 915’s outputs have measured source impedance of less than 90 ohms, and usable dynamic range measured –94.5 dB with our gate cheater test track.

The 915’s tone controls provide selectable center frequency on the high end and parametric operation at the low end. The top end offers 8 dB of boost or cut at center frequencies of 10, 12.5, 15, and 17.5 kHz. The parametric section is also a + or – 8 dB affair with resolution of 1 dB per click. Center frequencies of 60, 70, 80, and 100 Hz are available with Q values of 1.0, 1.25, and 1.5. A center frequency of 150 Hz is also provided with a single Q value of 2.0.

Overall, performance from the 915 is top notch. A bit of frequency response ripple above 5 kHz is the only thing that looks even remotely weird. The output waveform through this range shows no tendency towards oscillation or distortion, so I certainly wouldn’t recommend losing any sleep over it. From a technical standpoint, the 915 is among the best that we’ve seen in several years.

User Evaluation
Most of our regular readers have probably noticed the similarity between this section of a head unit review and the subjective portion of our subwoofer and speaker reviews. The important thing to consider is that the relative glow of the evaluation depends heavily upon the user’s preferences. If you feel that your preferences are similar, then by all means, take heed. Otherwise, feel free to consider the reviewer an opinionated jerk and spend your bucks on something that works for you.

The 915 has entirely too many small buttons and multi-level menus for my nearsighted, short-attention-spanned, clumsy ass. However, there are a great number of people who draw as much enjoyment from tweaking knobs and pushing buttons as they do from listening to their system. Not my cup of tea, but the fact that this type of interface is still around and thriving probably indicates that I’m in the minority.