I've been playing around with the various ways one can listen to music with the 950. At the end of the day, I seem to always come back to stereo bypass mode. I have a Jolida JD-100 tubed output stage cd player and the tubes produce the magic, for me anyway. Very natural, open sound that makes it eay to engjoy the music. Second favorite is PL-II Music with panarama off, width set to 7 and whatever that other setting is called set to 3. With the right recording this can sound very involving but I always come back to stereo bypass as my favorite. I think 5 channel stereo will be handy at our next party.