Jeff Mackwood,
When I gave my brief review of the 990, I gave a honest option of what we were hearing. You need to go back and read my brief review. Maybe you scanned over it to fast and really didn’t interpret it correctly.

"We auditioned the CD's, sacd's and played with all the different modes offered for listening. We all agreed that the 990 was a step up from the 950".
This is still true. I have listened to the 990 for many hours and still enjoy listening through the different modes offered and still like the sound better then that of the 950.

"We found it to be quite! silent, the sound was clean and clear".
Maybe the sound floor is a large contributor to what we were hearing and what makes it sound more musical

."I like the up sampling mode for some of the music. The bypass mode for pure sound is always my first option".
The up sampling mode was enjoyable listening, and enhanced some of my earlier cd's. The statement I made about BYPASS always being my first option, is true. I like the pure sound with nothing added to distort the true recording. How this took off to be a topic of what is or what is not musical is beyond me. Maybe start your own post with the question: The definition of Musical, and let everyone chime in.