In reply to:

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requires careful speaker matching.

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The quote from the article is:

"It is a little underpowered, but pairing with compatible speakers mitigates that shortcoming."

In other words, use efficient 8-Ohm speakers.

I think the M60's fit that bill nicely.

As I said!

I'm curious, did you audition other amps and preamps prior to purchasing the Outlaw equipment? The reason I ask is that the combo you have purchased is what I want to end up with. I have auditioned the Anthem equipment and really loved the sound. I would expect (read: hoping) the Outlaw equipment to have about equal sound quality. Just wondered what else you have listened to.

Rat you can set the x-over for each speaker on the onkyo seperately?

thanks for all the input, i havn't received the 990 or 7125 yet, probably not till the end of this week , the reason for my post was just doing a little homework on the new toy before it arrives
a few people have asked why i choose the 990 and 7125, well for the last 18 years i have been the proad owner of a sony str 2020 amd paradigm 7se speakers, this set up has served me well in fact it still works and sounds great, however i just recently turned my basement into a home theater since i did ( all ) the work myself i figured i deserved some new gear, since i saved so much on labour.
well at this time i also made a big mistake i was in one of my favourite sterio stores and on sale was a recently discontinued yamaha rxv 2500 , well i bought it basically for the yamaha name what the salesman told me , and the discounted price.
well what a disapointment , with music my old sony sounded better, the new movie options -dolby es and so forth worked well but my reciever definitly was lacking in the power department, i read somewhere that with all channels driven the yamaha only puts out 40 watts and i believe it

later i made a few good decisions for example after alot a research i came across axiom speakers, i just like the fact that this company ( axiom )relies on basically good word of mouth , i mean if these speakers were bad everyone would say so , right.
i also purchased the oppo dvd player , another good purchased based on good things i found about it on the web
finally outlaw audio, the jury is still out , i havn't heard them yet but from what i have read they should be great, i will let you know

Jake, the 703 is one of the Onkyos(some HKs and Denons also have the provision)which allows setting a different crossover for each group of speakers(not individual speakers), e.g. mains, center, side surrounds, back surrounds.

A comment on the review of the 657 which was linked is that it illustrates the desirability of having both subjective impressions of features and objective measurement of specifications included in reviews. The rather strange "underpowered" comment would appear to have no factual basis in view of the more complete Sound&Vision test which both subjectively and objectively(129 watts at 1,000 Hz)showed plenty of power for the vast majority of circumstances.

<<Output at clipping (1 kHz, 8/4 ohms)
both channels driven: 129/188 W (21.1/22.7 dBW)>>

<<Output at clipping (1 kHz into 8/4 ohms)
1 channel driven: 181/278 W (22.6/24.4 dBW)
5 channels driven (8 ohms): 67 W (18.3 dBW)>>

Yes, you can set the fronts, surrounds and rear surrround to different crossovers. I just double checked in the manual. I have all of mine set to 80 Hz. But, I can not set the right or left differently.

Hi JohnK,

Your other comments notwithstanding, I would like to point out Dan Kumin's (who used to write for me) technical comments on the Yamaha:

"The Yamaha RX-V657 produced good numbers, but a couple of notes are required. A switch sets the receiver for minimum speaker impedances of 8 or 4 ohms. The 4-ohm position current-limits its outputs to approximately one-half of their potential power. All numbers here were taken with the receiver set to the 8-ohm position, which was contrary to Yamaha’s recommendation, because some of my speakers present real-world loads well below 8 ohms. But there were no ill effects as a result either on the test bench or in my listening tests."

Like many other Yamahas, this one has current-limiting if the impedance switch is set to 4 ohms. It's why Axiom recommends Yamaha owners leave the switch at 8 ohms (and I know you've recommended that as well) even for lower impedances.

I wonder if the other comment on "underpowered" was because the reviewer used lower-impedance speakers and set the Yamaha at 4 ohms, which would drastically limit its output power.

Regards,