Thank you very much for your informative post. To be perfectly honest, and I may sound like an idiot, going digital to someone like me so into the tactile like this: though we currently have mountains you can walk up to and climb, I have this new method which allows you to hold a picture of it in your hand and still be able to touch its surface.

In other words, having dreamt of the day I could own components such as the 7500 and 990 and knowing that "weight" was usually on par with raw power, it is hard to think of digital intergrated amps that weigh only 10 pounds each. In any event, if it IS the "future" then I will wait in the future to buy them . . like say 5 years from now. Right now I am looking at proven technology with the 990 and 7500 (I am having great difficulty seeing why I need the 770 when I still have the two 2200 mono blocks).