Rat,
You should be letting the Kenwood do the Dolby Digital decoding, not the Sony. Doesn't the Comcast box have an optical or coaxial digital output you can connect directly to the Kenwood? From what I understand, your Kenwood is doing analog ProLogic surround decoding from a left/right analog inputs from your TV, which in this day and age is pretty awful by comparison to clean Dolby Digital processed through a good A/V receiver decoder.
In any future upgrade, avoid Kenwood.
Comments on weird 5.1 broadcast audio mixes are right on. But the whole point of individual level controls for each channel is to let you adjust the center (or surround) levels for intelligibility. Some sportscasts I've watched are ludicrous. They mix the crowd noises very loud in the surrounds and the announcers so low you can't hear them. So lower the surround levels and raise the center! Don't get all locked into "calibration".
And yes, "24" was very bass heavy this week. So I turned down the EP500 sub level on my receiver by a few dB.
Regards,
