> And to answer clio09 I have not tried it all the
> way to full open yet.
So ... you can turn it to 8, 9, 10, 11, etc and presumably play louder and you haven't? If you want it to play louder, turn it up. There's nothing special about 7. And there's nothing harmful about turning it to 8.
The Grounded Grid just has a different gain structure than you've been previously familiar. If you can play as loudly as you can possibly stand, then you're golden.
Personally, I'd love to have as much range of volume control as you seem to have. What you have now is fine grained control over your volume -- that's awesome.