I made a post few days ago about 990 being too harsh to my tastes with my Paradigm 100s. I was comparing the sound in Stereo (990s DACs) and Bypass (Wolfson WM8740 DACs of my Cambridge Azur CD player) and the sound is distinctively different - 990 is much brighter sounding when the Azur is more smooth and laid back. I think (at least that's how I hear it) that the 990s DACs have somehow subdued sound in mid-lows (around 500-100 Hz), and that makes the sound a little skewed to high frequencies (3KHz and up). When trying to play louder, it makes it hard to listen as SPLs at these frequencies are too high comparing to mid-low range. At low range it picks up again, but to me the overal soundstage is not smooth - there is a gap in levels between mids and low end. Again - that's what I hear. Maybe my ears are weird On the other hand, the Azur does not have this effect.

Anyway, here is the deal. I hooked H/K 635 yesterday evening to the 7700 amp (of course made the settings similar to the 990 and calibrated) to see if I can live with it and return the 990. The short answer is - no. Here goes the long answer.
The 635 does sound somehow smoother. The overall soundstage is much more balanced, with lows, mid-lows, mid-highs and highs playing with about the same perceived levels. No overloaded mid-highs and subdued mid-lows. For example the vocals are extended lower comparing to the 990, female singing sounds fuller.
So can 635 compare to the 990? Not really. The sound of 635 is not as clean. Comparing to 990 it's kind of veiled and muddy. Subtle details in music, which 990 resolves effortlessly, get lost with 635. The biggest problem is in the low end - it's not just muddy, it's mud itself. The 990 is very detailed in the lows, for example listenning to bass guitar is a pleasure. With 635 it's even hard to follow the bass guitar as it's becoming some indistinct rumble. Also, the 990 goes a lot lower without losing the clarity of bass. I can actually hear the subwoofer play note by note with 990, when with 635 is more like just some muddled low-frequency effects.

Conclusions of Part 1. I wish the 990 had a more even soundstage without losing the details. 635 goes to eBay. I went to a local store and picked up an Arcam AVP700 on loan. It's sitting on the floor ready to be hooked and calibrated. I will spend today and tomorrow listening to it and the 990. I will not be able to do a blind test or any kind of scientific comparison, but it's not my goal anyway. I'll just pick one that will give me more enjoyment with music. I'll let you know how it goes.

Let me just say I know what you're talking about. I have Paradigm Active 40's (which are self amplified Studio 40's) so my speakers are similar to yours. Same tweeter, anyway.

When I first got the 990 I also thought 'man this thing is much brighter than my old Onkyo receiver'.

But the more I listed, the more I realized something...it's not 'brighter'...it's cleaner. It's more revealing. Nothing is masked. Subtle things like the vocalists breath and the skins of the drum could now be heard. But on the flip side, it really revealed how crappy the sound on DirecTV is!

I've always felt that Paradigms are on the bright side in the first place, so I'm eager to hear your findings on the Arcam. How much does that Arcam cost, anyway?

Well, here goes part two. Again, the short story - 990 flies back to Outlaws as fast as possible, Arcam loaner goes back to the shop until I decide if I can part with another grand, H/K 635 is back in the rack until then.

Here is the long story.
The two units sound apparently (and appallingly) different. Comparing to the Arcam, the 990 is just weird. I discovered that it colors the sound is so many unexpected ways it's unbelievable. Yes, the harshness - comparing to Arcam it seems like there is a boost of mid-high frequencies and up. But that's not all. The low end is screwed up too. Sometimes there is bass coming out from the 990 that should not be nearly as heavy. The biggest problem is that this bass is not right. It's "cheap" bass, bulging someplace around 80-60Hz and not extending much deeper. For example the beginning of the Diana Krall DVD where a double-bass (is it the right name? contrabass?) is playing was so unnatural with 990 it was almost unbearable to listen. With the Arcam is was very natural and went so deep something rattled on the shelf.

The Arcam sounds very neutral with no colorization of any kind. Not harsh or bright at all. Extremely clean and detailed. It’s so silky and smooth with music, you just want to keep listening. With the 990 it was hardly possible.

There are few bad things too. Some clicks and pops. Only one global crossover (I think unacceptable on a dedicated pre/pro costing over $2K.) Some usability issues (for example all sound modes have to be cycled through with a single button.) I does sound a little too thin on recordings where there is no good bass recorded (Uriah Heep Magician's Birthday comes to mind), but just excellent on recording with good bass (Diana Krall DVD for example.) With the Outlaw it's actually (and sadly) the opposite.

Strangely the surround decoding works very differently on the Arcam too. It creates wider and more spacious soundstage, which kind of encircles you. But the H/K 635 decoding is more similar to 990, so I'm not sure what exactly the Arcam guys did and how true is it to Dolby standard. For example - running phase calibration from the Avia DVD between left front and left rear turned to be impossible as the Arcam mixes sound in such a way that the phase changes between these two channels are alsmost indistinguishable. Strange.

Anyway, the conclusion is that comparing to the AVP700, the 990 sounds like a very high quality boombox. Keeping the tradition with all other boomboxes, it boosts some frequencies so that the percieved sound may appeal better to some. It does it exceptionally well though, the boosting. Very clean, no boominess, just a little harshness. But the sound that comes out of it is very inaccurate and is very far from the original recording. For home theater it is pretty good (lot more boom on explosions), but for music – forget it.

The material listened (tried to make it different):
Diana Krall Live in Paris DVD
Tori Amos Fade to Red DVD
Steve Hackett Somewhere in South America DVD
Bjork Cambridge DVD
Procol Harum Live at the Union Chapel DVD
John Wetton Amorata DVD
Genesis Selling Englan by the Pound CD (mostly Firth of Fith)
Kate Bush The Kick Inside CD
Uriah Heep Magician's Birthday CD
Mike Oldfield Amarok CD
Roger Waters Amused to Death CD
Van Der Graaf Generator Godbluff CD
Eloy Ocean CD
Suzeanne Vega CD
Yes Relayer CD
King Crimson Lizard CD

On neither of the material I even remotely preferred the 990. Arcam sounded better on every recording.

The story continues – I took the 990 out of the rack forever and put the H/K 635 back. So I played a little with H/K and Arcam. Arcam does sound cleaner, but I noticed that on some older CDs it produced more hiss, so I set the Treble on the H/K to +4dB and made the highs practically identical. Now H/K sounds as detailed (well, almost) as the Arcam. Good thing is it still is not nearly as harsh as the 990. The mid-low bass on the H/K may sound a little better than on the Arcam, there is somehow more of it but its cleanness is questionable and it’s a little boomy. The deep bass on the Arcam is much better and, well, deeper. In the previous post I wrote that H/K bass was muddy. I don’t think it’s true anymore. It’s just the 990’s bass was so exaggerated that comparing to it the 635’s bass sounded less defined. Arcam is more similar to the H/K with the bass, just does resolve it better.

Overall – I can live with the H/K until Arcam guys clean up some bugs with their pre/pro and maybe release an updated model. If not these little annoyances I’d buy it tomorrow as to me its sound quality is worth the extra grand.
I definitely could not live with the 990.

Could this be the bass-boost-except-in-Bypass problem that so many others have noticed?

I don't know. I could not figure out what was happening. I tried different conigurations - small mains with a sub crossed at various frequencies, large fronts with a sub, large fronts without a sub, all lagre without a sub, all with different processing modes. All configurations yielded bulged exaggerated bass. Of course nothing could cure the harshness either.

It's possible that many people will actually like this kind of bass exaggeration for movies. I tried some movie DVDs, and the 990 had more what some would call "involving" sound. The special effects appeared more exciting. The Arcam was colder with movies, but I think more natural too. For example the 990 would render a simple door slam with a reassuring subwoofer thump (try slamming a door at your house, do you really hear a lot of bass?) The Arcam would make a door slam just that - a [boring] door slam.

Read the review of the 990/7125 in "The Absolute Sound", June/July 2006, Issue 162, by Neal Gader.
As yet, no comments from "The Outlaws"!

Is this not the week that the 990 firmware upgrade is supposed to come down the pike? I hope!

Yep, Scott said a week ago that barring disaster it'd arrive within two weeks.

I wonder what effects the new firmware will have. I bet it will have nothing to do with harshness anyway. In any case I'm not going to be able to test it unless it will be released tomorrow as my trial expires in two days. I have to return the Arcam tomorrow too.

DaveR: Can you post the Gader's review or maybe a short summary? I don't have a subscription and don't feel like spending $10 for one review article.

Wait a sec...let's back up.

Maybe you skipped over something but here's what I'm reading.

You are connecting your Azur via analog cables (otherwise you wouldn't be using the Azur DAC's).

Now from what you typed you are switching between internal DAC's (Outlaw) and external DAC's (Azur) by simply pressing the stereo button and alternating between stereo and bypass? Is that correct?

If so, you just made a huge mistake as that's not what's happening. If that's what you did then you never heard the Outlaw DAC's and any sound you did not like was in fact coming from the Azur.

Stereo mode routes the signal through the Outlaw's DSP.

Bypass bypasses the DSP and turns the video signal off.

I really hope this is not what you did. If it is, the sound you liked the best was coming from....the 990 because of it's excellent bypass mode which passes on a pure signal.