Thank you for the in depth explanation, I will continue to play with the settings.

you will find that at 1 to 2 notch setting, the picture is considerably softer. At first you may not see the artifacts of 3D filtering on higher settings, you would probably enjoy the very sharp picture too. But once you start to recognize the flaws, your eyes won't see anything else.

Ain't that the truth. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

S2 arrived without issue (other than moving the monster).

I can do an A/B comparison on my system with the push of a button. I popped Golden Eye in both and hit play on both at the same time. S9 is sharper but noisier and S2 is slightly softer with basically zero noise (it does run through DVD and DPS-290 where S9 goes right to Scaler). Both look better than I could have ever imagined, I would say its down to what type of picture you prefer. My plan is simple - AC-3 discs go in the S9, everything else goes in the S2 (I don't dare chance adding AC-3 to this beauty).

Still tuning and playing...

An LD-S2 popped up on ebay yesterday for $450.00 plus $52.00 shipping buy it now, lasted about an hour before it sold....

there's one for 1100 bux on fleabay