After having lived with my 990 and SMS-1 here are some things I like to say about the processor:

-Most important: The Sound!
First thing that comes to mind is NEUTRALITY.
No coloring at all, the irritating low mids/high bass emphasis when playing SACD I was used to with my Marantz receivers has totally disappeared.
Also, I have some very dynamic SACD and DVD-Audio discs, and I can confirm the excellent dynamics of the 990, at no point I felt inclined to reduce the volume.
No compression at all on orchestra tutti!

Movie sound is just as good as ever.
Slightly less creamy than the Marantz, but somehow more true...

-Direct or processed sound?
Tried 7.1 from SACD in "bypassed" and normal modes, and for the life of me, I can't hear any difference.
It's not easy to compare though, because selecting "bypassed" for 7.1 negates bass management too.
The Stereo mode (processed) is also fine, with no emphasis anywhere, bad CD's sound bad and really good ones (well, as good as redbooks get) really shine.

-Which setting do I prefer?
After reading the forum a lot and thanking Gonk and others for their commitment, I settled for selecting SMALL for all speakers.
Crossover is 60 Hz for my biamped fronts and 80 Hz for the rest.
This gives the best blend.

-Video
I do not use the video switching so I can't comment on that, nor on the radio section.

-What's missing?
* A per channel volume setting to avoid blowing one's ears off after a mode switch
* HDMI instead of DVI, it's the way to go right now- I'm sure Outlaw could sell more with hdmi
* Analog bass management for people who prefer the BYPASSED setting


-EQ
Using 3 Behringer EQ's DEQ2496 (one for the bass section of the fronts, one for the surrounds and one for the center), I am always trying to keep hiss and hum levels as low as I can.
So the balanced outputs of the 990 come very handy, as the Behringers are designed for XLR cabling!
I'm sure I will see even better results when I'll finally have my 1770 final amp set up, which (as you all know) sports balanced inputs.

SMS-1
It's well made, got a nice pic to play with but I found (after days of experimentation) you can't rely on the screen curve for 100%.
For instance- sometimes you see a hump of 3 dB which in fact turns out to be well over 10 dB!
And I do not trust the auto-EQ function: IMO the bursts are far too quick to "hear" standing waves build up.
Of course the same bursts are used to write the curve on the display.
Now this may be fine for most music (with quick attack) but when listening to organ and other classical music it's just not accurate enough.
So I think the SMS-1 is no better than any other processor driven EQ, you have to use your ears!
Good thing it's quieter than the Behringer, using the DEQ2496 for bass EQ'ing forces me to include a brickwall low pass filter band of 120 Hz to get rid of self produced hiss and various hum bands!
The SMS-1 is very quiet.

good review. Happy to hear about your experiences with the 990. It truly is an excelent pre/pro. I completly agree with you regarding the sound quality that you get with the 990. Did you think of trying dvi to hdmi cables for for video connections?

No, because my DVDO scaler also has DVI, not hdmi.