Back in the summer, in order to not have to spend alot of dough while waiting for their new pre-pro, I bought an RX-V1085 on sale as a stop gap. I use outboard amps. From what I gather the AI is suppose to be really only used for multi-channel situations i.e. movies. You can see what is going on with the audio when you bring up the information page whereas in one corner it shows the AI(or DSP soundfield) where in the bottom left hand corner it is showing the audio. If the movie is in Dolby Atmos, or whatever AI or not, it continues to display that in the opposite corner. I have never even considered it for two channel music and I doubt that is the purpose. From what I hear, if you have a movie sound field on, the AI replaces that DSP function and pressing the button again brings it back to whatever you were previously listening to. The second page shows in the bottom left hand corner, a circle that is constantly moving displaying what is going on in the AI soundfield.
Ultimately, I would agree that the AI is just another simplifying tool for the "non-geeks" who don't want to bother tinkering with the DSP to fine tune their sound. I am NOT one of those. I am a tinkerer.
