>> Maybe .AsString translates the binary blob to text, whereas lvar
>> already is of a different type?
>
>My intermediary is a Dev Ex grid which holds the string as a variant. It's not easy to replace.
>Any ideas on how to get the variant back to an ansi string?

Maybe you could change your query (or make a view) to contain cast(MyBlob as varchar(<WhateverLengthYouPrefer>). Unfortunately, this will not work if your blob contains non-text data or is huge.

HTH,
Set