From my experience, so far, the Pioneer gives you many more options to tweak the sound, whereas with Denon, your stuck with what Audyssy provides for you. It may be that the people that like Denon either turn Audyssey off, or their room works well with it.

You see a lot of complaints of Axiom speakers being overly bright in other forums. Now I'm of the opinion that might be complaints against Audyssey misdirected to Axiom.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?...amp;usp=sharing