Sorry guys, been away a couple days here. Yea, I finally got everything up and running. The locking connectors weren't anything to be worried about. They fit fine and everything went together nicely. No problems with hum or anything like that and the supplied trigger cable works just like it should.

As for listening, I really haven't had much chance to get a lot of critical listening in yet. I just finally got the system recalibrated last night. Since it's in our main room in the middle of the house, I need to do things like that on the rare instances I'm alone. My wife gets a little annoyed with the test signals going and going and going, and my four year old wants to paw everything and chat the whole time. Very cute and all, but she just doesn't understand how unhelpful it is in achieving the final goal.

All that said, I think that even casually, things seem better. It can certainly play louder (and clearer when doing so), but even at low levels, I think it sounds cleaner. That's not to suggest that the 1050 sounded muddy on it's own, but it's a bit like when your ears suddenly equalize and you hadn't even noticed they weren't. Not quite as dramatic, but the same effect. Maybe I'm imagining it simply to justify spending $1k on a separate amp (my wife still doesn't understand why we "need" it ), but I do like it better. I haven't solicited her opinion yet. I'm kind of waiting to see if she speaks up on her own and I also want to give us both a chance to hear it properly set up for a while.

I'm hoping to get a couple movies in this week. Need to rewatch my X-men with number three due out soon. Not that I need the recap, but it's as good an excuse as any to watch a couple of fun movies. The opening scene with Nightcrawler in X2 alone is worth buying that movie!

I'll follow up after some more run time.