[kaigoss69]

First listening impressions:

Absolutely fantastic! I'm not one of those people who can tell you exactly why, but I just know it when I hear it! I put in a Focal demo disc and everything just sounded great. The stage now stretches from mirror to mirror and in between, each instrument has its own unique location on the windshield. Voices are coming from dead center, head high, and there certainly is more depth as well. The sound is crisp and clear, without any hint of distortion even at very high volume levels. Pretty impressive for 18W per channel! (well, technically the L7 component speakers are 2ohm, so they are getting 30W). The underseat woofers also kept up surprisingly well, with that little power, but I definitely felt like they will need some additional juice. Overall, I believe that most people will be more than satisfied with the MS-8 powering the entire system, and for those who need more bass, they can add an amp for the L7 woofers or even a sub in the trunk.

As far a negatives go, I did get a few loud pops, but I have not yet been able to determine the likely cause. The unit does get very hot, so adequate ventilation will be required [edit: I later found out that the unit actually never ran hot again - I originally had the trunk open so the sun made it hot!]. I will install it above the L7 amp and I am thinking about adding a fan to vent the hot air out of the panel.

Very impressed!