Meant to add -

I was quite concerned with issue of noise, hum, and whether or not I could even run all of this equipment on my single 15A circuit. I live in an apartment building which has had a number of issues in the past with keeping the power flowing cleanly.

Anyway, I'm happy to report that I have absolutely zero hum or noise from my system. Actually, I'm quite relieved that this is the case, as I was quite worried about what I would experience once I plugged everything in.

I'm running the amp, pre/pro and sub through a surge protector/noise filter box I found lying around my parent's basement. I'm sure it's not a high dollar item, and it's probably really old. I don't know if it's doing anything for me or not, but I'm not gonna change anything just yet.

Still working on getting the system dialed in. I think it's kind of like getting the TV calibrated. At first I had everything running pretty hot, and the vivid picture looks pretty amazing. But once you start getting to more realistic colors and contrast levels, the viewing experience is that much better. I'm kind of going through that now with adjusting speaker levels, sub level, etc. Every day I like this system more and more....

I really wonder if the 7500 has a break-in period. It seemed a bit more harsh at first. I guess it could be that I'm just getting used to the sound--hard to say for sure. But it really seems more smooth and refined now that I've been playing the amp for a week or two.

Yet another new 7500 owner. I've also got a low hiss or hum issue, but it doesn't do it with just the amp turned on, so I posted about it in the 970 thread.

Gotta say, this amp does make some beautiful music!

Congrats to all the new owners. I also had a hum problem with the 7500 and it turn out to be the cable tv. Running the cable thru the surge protector did the job. Good luck
Ramon

I'd like to post what I discovered last night. First off, like most people, my cable was 80% of the problem.

I still had a little hum left. I have a junk Sony "ES" receiver, used as a pre-amp. Incidentally, will the 997 EVER be released!?! On the back, it has a little grounding screw. I connected a wire to it, and connected it to my ground, and immediately, no hum at all. Dead silence.

The Sony pre-amp has just a two pronged plug, so I wonder if that's the problem. Granted, I'm no electrician. All I know is what I've learned from Google for the past few weeks.

Good info, Monty - glad you were able to solve your hum issue. My system was dead silent until I added some analog cables between my BD player and the 990. Picked up a hum when listening via the 7.1 direct input mode. At the suggestion of another member here, I moved the analog interconnects away from the AC cords I had running in the back, and everything was quiet again.

Still discovering now how good 2-channel audio can sound with this system. Very happy so far. Look forward to many more hours of happy listening.

cheers!

Just to update, since I originally posted the link

You can now get the same APC power conditioner for 99.95 w/ no shipping from Amazon/tiger direct...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000AHVGA6/ref=ord_cart_shr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=A9B09ZK9BZJQ6&v=glance

$99??!??! Curse you praedet!!!

(Mine arrived yesterday, and I LOVE it.)

Sorry, I just saw it about 5 minutes before I posted

I bought one at $150 too about 2 weeks ago.

My only problem is I prefer it in black, so I might take it apart and try painting it...

Oh yeah, glad you like it

Just out of curiosity, do you know what brand and type of interconnects those were? Years ago my audio system was always plagued with hums, but that was in the days when I used radio shack audio cables. I replaced all of those with better ones and I havn't had a hum problem since.