Well, a lot of things happened lately!

First I took delivery of my new XLR cables, so the Main L/R are now connected in balanced mode to my external active crossover. The additionnal 6 dB of volume I gained by using balanced interconnects will come in handy because I was lacking gain on certain low level source (some satellite channels, the turntable, etc). I used to play CDs with the volume at +6, now it's OK at 0.

Second, I checked the Firmware version. I have 3.11 04, so no update required.

Next, I reconfigured my system. I'm now feeding the sub amp by the 990's SUB out. I set the Main L/R to Small and the SUB setting automatically became YES. I set a 120Hz crossover, which is almost what I used before.

After an extensive reset of my external active crossover, I played some 2 channels music from a CD. From analog and from digital. It sounded great in both case, just like it did before, in all 2 channels modes.

I then poped the Avia test DVD and proceeded to calibrate the levels. Uppon playing a few sweep test tones, I confirmed that the 990's bass management was working as it should.

I played a Dolby Digital movie I'm familiar with the sound (Spiderman) and HURRAY! Everything sounds as it should!

I then played a Dolby Surround movie. As a french speaker, I often have to suffer Dolby Surround 2.0 soundtracks. About half of the DVD release have only 2.0 as the french dubbed soundtrack. The sound was correct and sounded like I'm used to. It was my first exposure to the II version of Pro Logic and I liked it!

As for the Outlaw support, they gave me the usual lip service about how they are working on a fix and remarked I was still within my 30 days try period and I could have a return number no problem...

In conclusion, the sound is tonally balanced for all sources in all modes. I'm way happier than 2 days ago and I will keep the 990! But I still considere it "defective" and I think the published specs and features are missleading if not outright false advertising. I do hope Outlaw post an update. What is good to be able to upgrade a device in the field if no update is actually put out! Heck, my damn GPS is updated like twice a year! In the meantime, I'd suggest avoiding the LARGE MAIN/NO SUB combinaison as it don't work as it should.

So thanks all for the help and comments. Cheer!