Hi folks. JOY! Got the 990 hooked up in its' temporary location in my rack. Initial impression? 2 thumbs up. Big time.

* VERY nice sound from all inputs and surround formats. EXCELLENT!

* Lock onto digital signals is significantly faster than the 950. I had a real problem with this particularly between my SA3250HD cable box and the 950. Problem solved with the 990.

* HD and progressive scan video quality through the 990 is much better than it was through the 950. I noticed it immediately. That could because I have a 35' run from my rack to my TV. It's funny how you get used to a certain look or picture quality. This was a real pleasant surprise.

* Auto setup is nice. It got me to a nice starting point. I still tweaked it a little after running the setup routine.

* Renaming the video inputs is nice. Too bad you can't reanme the audio inputs too.

* Dolby Headphone is a little disappointing. Kinda sounds like you're in a tunnel. But that's no biggie since all my phones listening will be stereo anyway.

* One thing I noticed is that it seems to run a little quieter than the 950. By that I mean that where I would normaly watch TV at -30db on the 950, I seem to have the 990 at around -25db for the same volume. No biggie there either.

Have not had a chance to hook up my turn table yet. I will tomorrow and reort back.

That's all for now.

later,
simp