I have to admit that I considered not doing the firmware upgrade, but a lazy Saturday turned into a firmware party. First, my Oppo DVD player (that one was the easiest). Then my SMS-1 (second easiest), which I just unplugged and moved to the only Windows computer in the house with a serial port.

And that's when I paused and took one long, hard look at the 990. Do I unplug EVERYTHING (about 20 different connections), pull the thing out of the rack, move it upstairs, plug it to the PC, do the upgrade and then reverse the process? It was a long pause.

After playing with my newly upgraded SMS-1, I could no longer wait. So I devised a plan B: kicked my kids off the computer, unplugged EVERYTHING that was hooked to it (only about 10 things), moved the PC downstairs and parked it next to the 990. I could almost see the 990 giving me an approving glance. The upgrade went so smoothly that I felt silly for contemplating it so long.

The primary reason for this post is to urge anyone who is on the fence as to whether you need/want the upgrade to go for it.

I was satisfied with the bass management on the 990. However, over time I did stay away from 2-channel modes as I felt that my system sounded better in the multi-channel modes. I had assumed that I had to optimize it for one or the other and when the 2-channel modes sounded a bit dull, I thought it was because of this reason. After this firmware upgrade that is no longer the case. The UPSAMPLE mode sounds awesome. It always did, but the bass was always lacking in my opinion. To describe the improvement in one word, I would call it dramatic.

I would like to hear other impressions.

Thanks for the great work Outlaw.