knownalien,

The musicians in my house got all exited when they read your post. (Probably the first time they got exited reading anything in the Saloon!) I play my home theater, but between my wife and kids they play the piano, trumpet (and other similar brass), flute, piccolo, oboe, and english horn. I got a lesson in harmonics when my son played various notes on the piano and explained overtones. My son used the example of an electric piano versus a regular piano. The electric piano plays just the notes and it sounds shallow. A regular piano plays the notes and you hear the overtones being generated by the rest of the piano. It is a much more deep and rich sound. Room effects are nothing new to audio so room overtones with a live performance seem reasonable too. It was pretty cool lesson.

Is your question whether overtones outside of the audible range impact the quaility (depth) of the sound in the audible range? Well, the debate kicked off in the house between my family members with a call to a friend who is studying music. Their conclusion is that in theory the inaudible overtones would have an impact on what you hear. This would be no different than audible overtones impacting the sound in the audible range.

So when you buy audio equipment do you really hear it like you were in front of the musicians? I think there are so many variables that its hard to know. How good are the mics and every other piece of recording and playback gear between the musicians and your ears. If the overtones are subtle (as I suspect high frequency overtones would be) it seems they would not be carried through the recording and playback process.

Now something I can answer. I recommend the 7500 versus 5 2200's. I tried five 2200s and for a variety of reasons (# of cords, the space the 2200s took, and a quality issue) I sent them back. Just before the 7500 came out I got the equivalent ATI model at a very good price and I couldn't be happier.