Hey thanks for the ideas guys, I will experiment based on these suggestions, JohnK I think you are right, I am currently running the sub a little too hot because I want to get a feel for what a sub can do, never having had one, when I first got the QS8s I did the same thing and ran them too loud to get a sense of what surrounds can offer. At the moment I have the surrounds perfectly balanced in the mix and love the way they provide ambiance and then peek through with directional info the way they are meant to at just the right moment. The QS8s with appropriate calibration truly are quite forgiving because they are not exactly where I would want them, especially the left surround, but they sound so great/perfect that the feeling is I would not change anything. The only modification by ear I made that Audyssey agreed with was to taste back the center speaker (-1 db?) because it was just too forceful in my setting. I love the balance and the eq so much that I no longer even feel the need to overemphasize the M80s, which I love for their presentation of musical content, especially HT music to support narrative.
When I ran Audyssey following a rough approximation of the avr forum recipe I made one mistake, or so I guess, rather than set the sub volume to half, I set it to a quarter as per the Axiom manual recommendation. Audyssey then set the sub to +7.5 db, and I have this feeling the the EQ of the system may have been subtly shifted from what it would be if I had set the volume to half.
Well it's been a long journey even learning a few minimal ideas, honestly I don't mind tweaking yet seldom have time, I'm hoping somewhat hoping that the heavy lifting phase of the troubleshooting days are over, i.e., the steep learning curve phase, although yes I know with modern electronics, the learning curve never ends (I'm sure my network fiasco has become legend, at least it should have, it reminds me of my dad, who is quite intellectual but to this day can't get begin to get the concept of input versus output, and how simple it is to figure out how to connect a source to an amp, different generation), point is I'm hoping when I next have time to crank up a bluray I'm hoping nothing blows up, Audyssey likes the M80s at crossover of 40 hz, even with Directv which generally seems pretty compressed I heard a couple of electrical pops not even at reference sound.
On "vacation" now, performed 2-3 normal weeks work in the last 3 days so I could have a "paid" vacation with no interruption of income to cause me to worry that much about finances, after that I was so Type A on the way to the airport, we head out with plenty of time and after 20 minutes my wife says "Oh I forgot my cellphone" of course I insist we head back home because she can't live without that but it was so hard to just get to the airport just barely on time when I have let myself become hypnotized recently to believe so much in the validity of time pressure.
I do love the 800 and before when I had the ridiculous setting of everything at 40 hz the bass was seamless, I feel pretty sure with experimentation I can make it work with regard to integration of the entire HT system, which would be good because I've been forced to swear off major HT purchases for the next 5 years (yeah let's see how long that lasts but probably at least two years as long as nothing breaks).
