Asx - TommyBoy,
For the last couple of day's i have been wandering what 990 Asx was using. I have been playin 2 channel jazz and classical (mostly Telarc and Grammaphone recording) and have not noticed what Asx was describing.
I figured I have heard enough equipment to surely hear what Asx was describing (Dahlquist, Magnepan, Mark levinson, CJ, Krell, Rotel, Adcom, Snell, Axiom, Aperion, PSB, B&W, etc.).

So i started playing. On the 990 - first i killed (setup=none) the sub. Set the paradigm ref60v3's to large. Set 2ch = 0
music, music .... bass mmm.?!?!? I wanted something extended but not movie fake.
i thru in a jazz funk band named FOUR80East (Nocturnal) in the player(hooked up via rca digital into the 990).
I spun cut #5 and set it to A-B repeat on just the first 30-40 sec.

I have always had the Tone Defeat=On. So i listened to Bypass and Upsampling. Good as always.
Then i turned Tone Defeat = Off.
I was expecting no real change. I mean nothing really noticeable. But sure enough - the bass was exaggerated and i can see where 'muddy' could be used as a description.
And the image seemed cut down and subdued. The drums/cymbals where compressed in. where’s the image?
I flipped the Tone Defeat = On: The imaged opened up and the bass settled down. crazy – no?!?!?!

This is my 2 cents worth……..

Cappra: Play something in stereo or upsampling. On the 990 unit, push ‘tone’. If it is =on – then that should pop up (Tone Defeat = on). Other wise you should see bass. Push ‘Tone’ button until you see Tone Defeat. Push the up/down key. ‘On’ should replace ‘Off’. You are good to go.
.

tmdlp,
Thanks for the help! Using the tone defeat=on made the volume level the same for stereo, bypass and upsampling. Bypass sounds much better!

tempdlp,
Good catch.
Stereo, Bypass, and Upsample ALL have the same volume and sound beautiful!
No wonder I was griping last week. This 990 is 10x better now. Excellent sound.

In case you miss the edit I put in my post above, I will put it here too:
Make sure you set Tone Defeat on. Per Outlaw support, setting it to ON bypasses the DSP, when playing a CD through a digital source. In addition, I think he said there is a bug that messes up Bypass mode with tone defeat=off (even if Bass and Treble are set to 0) with a digital source -- that will be fixed in the upcoming firmware.

Just checked my Tone Defeat setting and it was ON. I do not recall setttng the parameter, but I have never experienced the problems Asx described, nor the level changes others have described. Just lucky I guess.

How many people have compared the 990 with something like AVP700 or Cary side by side in their own setups, not just listened to them in some showrooms? I tell you, when I first heard the 990 I was pretty happy too, coming from H/K AVR635 (H/K AVR8000 before that which I reluctantly had to sell.) It's only by the end of the trial period I concluded that something was not right. Maybe you too should find a local shop and arrange an Arcam loaner just for the sake of experimenting. You may be quite surprised.

Why do I still have it? - I guess I still want to figure out what's going on and don't want to spend that much extra money on Arcam or Cary or something else if I really don't need to. Btw, I extended my trial period with Outlaws so I can try out the new firmware and then decide.

Just curious, did you do the comparison in your house, with you own speakers, all units together? I heard the Cary yesterday in the showroom (before I took it home, which I never even intended to do as I never heard of the company) and was not much impressed - was kind of nice but nothing special. It's only when I brought it home I discovered what it really can do with music (hint: it's better than the Arcam). But I agree that with movies 990 is fine. On the other hand my H/K 635 with movies is just as fine.

Hm, interesting. I had to leave for the rest of the evening yesterday so never had a chance to try. I'll do it today. But the symptoms you are describing are very similar, including the compression and shrank soundstage.
I wonder if only this particular Tone routine or every mode of the DSP colors the sound. For example would having DPLII engaged but the Tone defeat ON result in the same colorization? I'm guilty of using DPLII with music sometimes on certain material (try Mike Oldfield Amarok for example) and would not want to lose this option. On both Arcam and Cary the DPLII with music was wonderful without changing anything in the sound spectrum. Also, what about straight DD or DTS tracks? They go through DSP too, and I found DTS music to be as bad as Stereo in terms of harshness and bass colorization.

Anyway, I'll try today when I get home.

It's me again I run home for lunch as an excuse to quickly try the Tone Defeat trick. Well, it's definetely a bug in the software and there is a noticeable difference between Stereo and Bypass when it's on or off.

There are some other news. I really did not have enough time to try everything yesterday evening, but I did something. When I talked to Steve he told me how to avoid the bass bug. I'm not sure if it's the only way, but that's what did it for me - reset the processor (with the unit in standby, hold together Set and Menu buttons on the front of the unit, it will erase everything including you input assignments). Then set the x-overs, distances, levels normally, but leave the fronts to Small and do not touch the Subwoofer setting in the Speaker Size menu. So I did this yesterday night but didn't have time to really try it (also was so enjoying the Cary that it kind of Carried me away for a while

Anyway, when I quickly tried the now reset and tunedefeated 990 and the Cary during lunch time, I got somehow surprised that I did not hear that much of a difference anymore, at least in the bass department. There is some, but it can be easily contributed to variations in subwoofer calibration levels. Granted I had time to listen only to Genesis Selling England..., Frith of Fith track (good for bass but not for harshness testing) so I never concentrated on the harshness. I'll do that part of testing tonight with some female vocals. So - if somebody is still concerned about bass, reset the darn thing, don't touch the sub setting, and see if you hear the difference.

Hello again, Asx. Thanks for the feedback - you're turning up some interesting stuff. Hopefully it'll help both you and others in both system setup and in deciding the processor that is the best fit to your needs.

OK, I think we figured out what was going on... at least to some extent.

Good news are that all weirdness that I described above was caused by the Tone Defeat and the extra bass (cured by the reset.) It is very easy to repeat. Play a CD via digital conection (choose something with well defined deep bass, or something with female voice and piano), choose Stereo, and then start switching the Tone Defeat ON and OFF on the remote. As soon as the Defeat is turned off, the midbass is bumped up, the low bass disappears, the midrange (piano) is getting subdued, and the harshness is there. The soundstage shrinks considerably too. Turn the Defeat on and the soundstage expands, bass is getting smoother and lower, and the harshness is gone. I wrote above about Renaissanse Novella CD - now with the Tone Defeat ON, switching between the Azur player (analog bypass) and the 990's DACs virtually does not cnange/color the sound. But if I set Tone Defeat to off, the piano steps backs and the voice gets harsher. Wow!

Here are maybe not so good news. I listened again to Diana Krall, Procol Harum, Bjork, Steve Hackett, Tori Amos DVDs in DD and DTS, and comparing to Cary they still sound different. Soundstage seems more narrow, and the timbre is different and it seems harsher too. DPLII Music also seems to bring the harshness, and the Tone Defeat has no effect if either mode of DD or DST is selected. Try playing with the Tone Defeat in Stereo until you understand what effect it brings, then leave in ON and start switching between Stereo and DPLII Music - I bet you'll hear scary similarities.

So it looks like the DSP processing on the 990 is not quite up to... well, at least my expectations. I hope some DSP (not just system) code will be updated with the firmware release, but I'm not holding my breath.

Asx,
Suggestion:
Here is the reason that you might be hearing a difference in DPII:
By default, the Music PLIIx on the 990 sounds un-musical because of the defaults. On my system, 90% of the sound "seems" to come out of the center channel in Music PLIIx, with the defaults. So you might be comparing L/R speakers (full-range) on your Cary to the C speaker (not full-range) on the 990. L/R speakers will obviously sound much fuller.
Try this: The Center Channel width setting on the 990 defaults to 0. The manual says to start at 3 and go from there. I have noticed, in Music PLIIx the higher the width the better because all of the sound is not going to the center speaker anymore.
The manual is correct. The default is not. The center width is a very nice feature on the 990! 0 should not be the default...

Here is my un-official chart (joke):

Center width
------------
0 bad (default)
3 good (recommended starting point in manual)
~4-6 excellent

************
Changing the subject: Why does the center width setting have no effect on **Movie** PLIIx? In other words, it works in Music PLIIx but not Movie PLIIx? Too much sound out of just the center, with no control for Movie PLIIx?

Staying on the changed subject: I believe that the center width setting is disabled in Movie mode to make sure that dialog stays well anchored to the center channel and not overly spread out to the left and right channels. If you go back to the days of Pro Logic, music performed very poorly because it all collapsed to the center. Pro Logic II created separate music and movie modes primarily to deal with that issue.