Brian, glad to see most of the stuff arrived in good condition. It's been mentioned a few times in posts that banana plugs need more room than the QS brackets allow. Besides, the advantage of banana plugs is when you're frequently connecting and disconnecting; once you have your QS8s set up you won't be doing that, so the regular bare wire connection should be fine. You might contact Axiom about the banana plugs, especially the broken one, to see what they can do.
As to the loudness of the M80s, even receivers with far less maximum power than the 7700 can drive them to unbearably loud levels, depending on what material is being played, of course. You'll eventually get there with the right settings on your 990. Enjoy.
