April 28 is an eternity away. The wait will be worth it at the end once you plug it in.

I finally got to try out the 7125 in my system. I'm impressed. The first thing I noticed over using the amp section of the Onkyo TX SR876 was the improvement in bass. More of it, and tighter, or more accurate when coming from the fronts. The overall impression is cleaner too. The Onkyo was bloated by comparison.

The soundstage improved as well with the speakers disappearing more. There is more detail or texture as well. I thought the Onkyo was pretty good, but I'm at a new level now. The amp's only got 10 - 15 hours on it so it may improve some yet. In about a year I'll look to get a pre-pro and by then the 978 will be on the short list.

"The Onkyo was bloated by comparison."

That is what I thought on the 7500 over my Onkyo 906. The soundstage on an amp is definitely improved with speaker disappearance. The dynamic power must be a whole lot better on the 7125 over the 876.

its about a year since I have had the 7125, and it does improve with age, the soundstage is phenomenal, also I chnaged my speakers, returned the Mirage omd's and got the KEF's. Just played the eagles "hotel california" and it felt as if I am right there in front row of a concert. so far so good, the 7125 does not break a sweat at any load levels. Also purchased the outlaw LFM-1+ sub, amazing as well. Just for kicks, a couple of months ago, I had conected my speakers directly to my pioneer elite vsx-32, there is no comparison, the sound from 7125 is so much more fuller and richer.

Glad to hear you are enjoyong your nice 7125. Yes you are correct RCUBE in that the amp smoothens out with age. Good buy on the sub as well. No receiver can match an amplifier. Anything above $800 or so on an AVR is overspending methinks. Your power supply is more important than you will ever know. Two to Four thousand dollar AVRs? Today's luxury...tomorrows garbage or a pre-pro. Quality performance will always outlast bells and whistles.

A little update.

When I ordered the 7125 I was out of town on work and came home on a weekend to set it up, but couldn't get the 12v trigger to work. Left it until I was to come home again.

Still couldn't get it to work, so I phoned tech support and got it sorted out. It turns out the power button needs to be in the on position and then I think I plugged in the 12v trigger while energized. Then when I turned off the pre the amp followed suit and vise versa.

On the performance side it's been a good upgrade on the amp section of the Onkyo 876. Like I said earlier the soundstage was improved and the bass performance cleaned up. But recently for the first time I listened to music in a 5.1 and 7.1 configuration. Wow. Even just music recorded in old school 2.0. Let the Onkyo process it into Dolby or THX and it's just better all around. The only thing I want to eventually add to my theater system is Audyssey XT32 down the road.

Glad you like your amp. The detail it pushes out is definitely cleaner and faster than an AVR. Remember one thing, an AVR's power rating is NOT measured with "all channels driven".