The less than scientific answer would be, "Whichever sounds better to you.
When I finally go a sound meter, I discovered ny Denon matched everything the same as my sound meter (sub excluded because of the known tweak) except for the surrounds which it made 4 and 4.5 db higher. I matched everything evenly with the sound meter and tried a few movies over a few nights. Eventually, I went back to setting the surrounds 4 db higher again.
I suspect it has much to do with my rooms very lousy acoustics and the Denon processor was picking up something that the meter was not, as I only used the single test tones from the Avia disk with the meter. That is to say, I haven't bothered to rate the whole spectrum yet.
Or perhaps it's just that I really enjoy surround effects and got used to them at the higher levels.
In any rate, there is science and there is subjectivity. Which one can make you happier? Being both a high tech geek and semi-rubberbooter kayaker, it's always an internal struggle that I have.
