Got the MM7055 in last night, and got it hooked up. Initial impressions are mostly favorable. The EI transformer takes up a serious amount of real estate, and the capacitors look like they're about the size of an 8oz can of soda. They're 2 x 33,000uF/71V parts, which compares favorably with the 2 x 10,000uF/63V parts in the Marantz SR6004 Gene reviewed a couple years back (equates to more than 4x the energy storage if nothing else). Overall build quality of the chassis doesn't seem quite as solid as the Outlaw, but still more than adequate. Only real gripe in that respect is the chintzy binding posts. No big deal for me since I use banana plugs anyway, but it's something with a little room for improvement. Posts are well spaced at least, and there's a sheet of plastic over the chassis in that area presumably to keep any stray strands of wire from making contact. It's also a lot nicer looking than the Outlaw 7125, which is a drab gray all around.
The big upside of course is that it fixes the problems I had with the Outlaw. No hum is audible even with my ear 1 foot from the amp, and hiss appears to be gone as well. I took the fan out of the equation (the MM7055 has active cooling anyway), so the in room noise floor is appreciably lower. Might just be placebo effect, but it seems to make a useful difference in low level listening (i.e. watching TV). I haven't had time to really put it through its paces yet, but it didn't get more than warm to the touch after being on for an hour or so at moderately high levels. I'll test that out a bit more for an expanded preview article (no, I'm not going to do a full review w/ a subjective piece & no measurements). If I'm bored, I might compare the FR to the Outlaw through one of my speakers, though I already know what the answer is going to be.
