Of cousrse it's not what I did I just didn't get into switching details when I wrote it. In relality I had CD input set to Analog/Bypass and AUX input set to Coax1/Bypass (Coax coming from the player of course) and was switching between the inputs.

Another little detail I remember (forgot to write before) - I was trying Renaissanse Novella CD, and on the beginning of The Sisters track it was very clear that the Annie Haslam voice was overpowering everything with the 990, thus making the whole scene harsh. The Azur brought the piano, synthesizer and the guitar more to the front so everything became nice and smooth. The effect of this difference was quite amazing.

As far as I remember the low end sounded quite different with Azur too, but I was concentrating on the harshness at the time and ignored it.

Okay, just making sure. Thanks for clearing that up!

I also preferred the sound of the DAC's in my Marantz DV-6400 for CD sound, but the difference was not huge. It's not a big enough difference to where I would miss the 6400 if it were to blow up all of a sudden, I would be happy either way.

Actually, in bypass mode the 990 bypasses the DSP, so calling it "excellent" is perhaps misleading. If asx is connecting via analog, then in bypass mode the sonic character is coming from the Azur. In addition, in Stereo mode the outlaw's DACs are, in fact being used - in order for a DSP to process the digital signal, the signal must go A/D preprocess and D/A postprocess.

I will say this - IMHO it's kind of pointless to send a stereo signal through the 990 any other way than bypass, since you're adding (for an analog connection) not only two more DAC passes but also signal processing - a recipe for coloration. Note that the 990 manual itself says that Bypass will produce a cleaner sound than stereo mode.

I guess I called the bypass mode excellent because it is so transparent, which it should be.

I'm liking the 'upsampling' setting for CD's as well. Adds a nice bit of warmth to the sound.

I still have the 990 but returned the Arcam (thinking of buying it later.) The guy at the store offered me to try something else, so I picked Cary Cinema 6 pre/pro. Listening to it right now and comparing to the 990.

Same results. Cary is smooth, the bass is even and deep, no harshness at all. Although I cannot compare them side by side, I think Cary is very similar to the AVP700 as I'm enjoying the music just as much. Outlaw is harsh as usual, bass is bulged up and not deep, pretty much hopeless with music.

Disclaimer: yes I am aware of the price difference.

Asx,
Thanks for the helpful info.

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.

Asx,
You say that the 990 is harsh as usual, bass is bulged up and not deep, pretty much hopeless with music. How come I don't hear this kind of bashing from most of the owners of this unit? I would venture to say that over 90% of the owners are very happy with their units.
I don't understand why you still have the 990. If I was that unhappy with it, I would have returned it a long time ago. Buy the Cary and go in peace...

Asx's feedback is different from the norm, but I commend him for putting in the time to swap out equipment to find the best unit for his needs. I keep trying to think of what variable in the 990 equation might be off to produce the disappointing performance that he's reporting, because it does seem unusual. So far I haven't seen anything obvious. Odd bass management settings can easily yield very disappointing results, but Asx clearly has a good handle on how to set up a surround processor and should therefore not be doing anything so severely out of whack. I wish I could suggest something that would yield the very pleasing performance that I'm getting from my 990...

How do I access the Set Tone Defeat=ON?
I'm not seeing it in the menu!

I too wonder if something is wrong with asx's 990.
i also compared the 990 to the arcam 700 ,as well as an anthem 30. I agree the arcam is very good but to me not worth the additional money. Possibly this is because i use my 990 for mostly movies.
What i really wanted was the Krell, but that will have to wait until i win that lottery.
The snobby salesmen at my local arcam dealer also helped me to lean towards the 990.
I think the clincher was when i saw a 3 year old outlaw 950 go for $100 dollars less than the fellow paid for it new on ebay, gotta love that transferable warrenty to keep the resale value high.