After days of deliberating on which amp to buy (7700, 7200 , 7500 And the Emotiva MPS2 or the IPS-1) I placed my order today for the 7700! This is way more amp than I need right now today; but I wanted to do it right the first time! And IMHO... with support at Oultlaw like Scott and Edward it is worth it to me to spend the extra $$. Those two guys are INCREDIBLE! Can't wait to get it; hook it up and post back! Anyway, thanks to ALL on the forum who helped in my decision as well!!!!!

Take care!

Congrats!!!

I think you will quite pleased.
I love my 7500!!!

Enjoy the 7700, 64met. I think you'll be quite pleased.

Good luck to you on your purchase. Looking forward to hearing about it.

Hopefully you don't run into any transformer hum or ground loop issues.

Question about surge? Do you all recommend a separate surge for the 7700? Currently, I have all my other gear going into a monster power center. I don't think plugging this amp into the monster is a good idea? Is it ok directly to wall? Or a separate surge; just for the amp? Wondering too... if my choice might help the potential of ground loop, humming, etc.

Thxs again!

Surge protection, particularly for such an expensive piece is always a good idea.

I'd worry about ground loops and hums when you run into the issue. Until then, just a good quality surge protector will do you.

It is recommended that you plug the amp into a dedicated power circuit though. Nothing else should be plugged into it.

I'd put it on some sort of surge protection. The manual does recommend a dedicated circuit, but that's likely to only be required if you are either running bench tests to verify the all-channel power output or you have some particularly inefficient speakers. In most circumstances, the amp will never draw close to its full load capacity, making a dedicated circuit just for the amp less of a necessity.

True, but if he has the choice between buying a power conditioner or getting dedicated circuit installed, he'd be better off going with the dedicated circuit.

I'd get a surge protector first and foremost, but some of that may come from living in tornado alley and having a bit of fear of what nastiness might come down the power lines during a storm - something reinforced by standing in the hallway of our old house and watching the power slam off, on, off, on, and finally off again in about five seconds during a windstorm known locally as "hurricane Elvis" (spent the next 10.5 days without power, in late July and early August). My system (which was sitting downstream of a Panamax unit at the time) came through that ungraceful shutdown unscathed, but my microwave's display was never quite the same and a co-worker lost a VCR and had to have some repairs made to a Sony TV and a I think a Spectral pre-amp as well.

The biggest reason that I don't recommend folks rush out and add dedicated circuits is that I've seen how difficult it can be to push an amp (even one like the 7700) to a level where it actually needs a dedicated circuit. It's good practice to have a dedicated circuit (or close to a dedicated circuit) for the overall system, but unless you're doing electrical work anyway or you are running some really power-hungry speakers I'd not be quick to recommend getting an electrician to snake a new circuit through the house just for the amp.