I'll start off by what really happened just moments ago. First off, I listen to all kinds of music. All kinds. When I put in Speakerbox by Outkast and went to track 3 and listened at reference levels I nearly jumped out of my seat because I though one of my cell phones was ringing this tone I'd never heard before! I was literally startled! Then after about 5 seconds, I realized it was a guitar rift I'd never heard before. That's a true story. I then proceeded to listen in kind to much of what I had trying to duplicate the same. It was not hard. In James Brown's Get up and Down in Out in New York, I could hear musicians taking breathes in the background. The Sony is set to direct mode. The 990 is set to stereo. But the 990 put James' voice right in front of me. I could hear the saliva in his throat as he breathed. At no point did my speakers sound fatigued. In fact they were singing as if I could go higher and higher. The 7500 sits like some kind of overlord on my component rack. It was just easier to put it there. Being the heaviest thing it should be at the bottom. Oh well. At every range my speakers sang like never before. The highs were so crisp I was really aware of the vifas in them. The mids were never blurry and always seems to have headroom to produce something else. Decays (very important) were allowed to finish. And the bass authority with the 7500 providing 300 watts to one 8" woofer alone gave the impression of tightness and depth and authority without the impression of high excursion. But bad recordings will sound BAD. It happens. In Streisand's "The Way We Were" I could hear piano rifts I had never noticed before during loud orchestral moments (which tend to cover up un-mic'd pianos). In Tito Puente's Dance Mania, the imaging put the singer right in front of me. The 990 did not try to "color" any of the high trumpet sounds like some processors might do. They let them sound "vinyl." And in Bowie's "Space Oddity" I again heard stuff not noticed before. At times, with the song "Space Oddity", at reference levels the midrange speakers can get overwhelmed because of the style of playing the bassist is using. But not only did the 990/7500 handle it with apparent ease, I heard the kick drum throughout most of the song which (to be frank) I had not noticed before! In Katchaturian's "Spartacus" there is a moment (a version of it opens the movie "The Hudsucker Proxy") which is perhaps some of the most beautiful music yet written. It will be the case with most live recorded music that high end audio equipment will not be able to compensate for the less than ideal recording environment. Nonetheless, clarinets were uncolored. Audiophiles like to focus on the human voice to tell what is being colored but in my industry I recognize other things. Audiophile may focus on the human voice because it is so known to us all, but the clarinet (not my favorite instrument btw) is a very good indicator. That is, when it is not being vibrated it has a near perfect sin wave recepie. Telling if it is being colored or not is very easy esp. when one considers that the human voice in studios often goes through some type of processing.

The crossovers are as follows:

LSi15: 40 hz
LSic: 60
LSi9: 60

So I turned on 5 channel stereo. Even though different amps drive the surrounds, I was shocked at the added sound, clarity, and all hell . . . clarity!! I was coming from a Denon 2105 which ran dirty at not only 4 ohms, but powering speakers at very demanding frequencies.

I guess I can't say this enough, but if I had to define the 990/7500 in just a few words they are:

1) clarity
2) authority

Best $2500 I ever spent. Oh, and Outlaws PCA cables are to die for!

Great write-up, knownalien. Thanks for the report.

Knew you would like it, Known. Enjoy.

I too found the upgrade between a receiver and 990/ATI2005 (7500) pretty amazing. Movies were much better, particularly the use of the surrounds, but the improvement in music was off the charts. Enjoy you new gear and rediscovering music you've listened to in the past.

Oh, and for the record, even my wife said everything sounded much better. Talk about support!!

you've arrived.. hee hee hee.

congrats on putting together a kick ass sounding system.

for some reason the power button one the stock remote does not turn on the 990 but it does turn it off. What am I doing wrong?

Knownalien, that is the one thing I dislike about the 990 remote. The power button will not cut the 990 on. You have to select one of the inputs to power the unit on.

You're doing nothing wrong. Outlaw uses discrete on and off codes: the power button turns the 990 off, while any source button (DVD, CD, Video1, ...) will turn the 990 on and set it to that input. They've done this since the Model 950 came out due to requests from a number of Model 1050 owners, because it's very useful for creating macros on third-party universal remotes.