With the box being opened previously, I was thinking that someone possibly bought them, tried them out, and sent them back, but the boxes (which again were previously opened) had no signs of previous shipping labels besides the one for them to come to me.

Not the end of the world considering the price that I paid for them, and the blemished ones will go on the back wall anyway. Nobody goes to the back wall except to vacuum.

I got them all mounted on the walls, but I need to wipe out my Audessey settings to listen to things completely un-altered, and then run Audessey and see if I like the changes. I did play a scene from Oblivion last night and there seemed to be good (better) imaging of one of the probes near the beginning where it crashed in an old stadium. After Jack Harper, Tech 4-9 (LOL) fixes it, it shoots straight up and then zooms away. I was able to really hear it zipping past me, and the ambient sounds it made way in the distance were noticeable from the rear surrounds.

If after messing with the Audessey later today it gets even better, then I am going to pack up the QS8s until further notice. Around Christmas I might mess around with a pair of QS8s in a front "wide" configuration where they are on my side walls between the front speakers and the side speakers. If that yields minimal performance boost, then I will sell them all and be ready for more M3s for Atmos down the road.

Farewell - June 4, 2020