Travk13,

I was referring to your post - since it was the one that kicked-off this thread.

While I specifically mention bypass mode, your post did say that you had "played with all the different modes offered for listening" and found the 950 to be "not as musical as I would have liked."

Regardless, I remain just as baffled by comments (yours and anyone else's) regarding "musicality". Is there more noise, more distortion, inaccurate frequency response with the 950 versus the 990? How exactly does one component sound more musical than the next?

I'll extend my claim to include DAC processing as well. I seriously doubt, in the absence of noticeably noise, distortion or non-flat frequency response, that anyone can tell the difference, in a blind listening test, between any two modern-day pre-amps passing a stereo signal through their DACs.

I'm sure that there could be differences heard between multi-channel DAC-processed modes - but not because of the DACs themselves - or at least not likely because of them. I can set-up the DPLII parameters on my 950 to either approximate or not a true concert listening experience from most sources using the user-accessible parameter adjustments. Maybe the 990 can do it better. If so, is this what makes the 950 less musical?

In fact I bet that you could not tell the difference between a purely anologue stereo signal travelling through a 15 year old analogue pre-amp with inherently low noise, distortion, and flat response, and the 990's DAC's passing the signal. Inaudible is inaudible regardless of how it reached your ears. Analogue or digital: they are both designed to simply pass the signal through without you noticing. And except for obviously flawed or failed designs (like the original 950), they all accomplish this - with no difference in musicality (whatever that is.)

Jeff Mackwood