I would agree with Adrian. This last weekend I got a call from my friend, he had just purchased an Onkyo HTIB (S5200 I think it was). He was pretty upset with it, and was considering it a blown $400 until I asked if he had calibrated the system with anything other than the built in Audyssey. After we played around with the settings by ear, it was a night and day difference. For some reason the automated EQ had set the center channel and subwoofer at -12 db each, and so he assumed that the system just had no bass or dialogue... Anyhow, night and day difference after calibrating the system just by ear (no SPL meter).
I was so shocked by the difference that I'll probably grab a real SPL meter next time im passing a radio shack.
