Some thoughts on calibration….
For audio, unless you want to spring for Audysey Pro calibration, I see no value in paying for this service. Audysey Pro is quite complex and the calibrator must be certified to do this. You’ll end up with a notebook full of graphs that will baffle even the most geeky of the audio geeks. But, the calibrator will be able to identify areas of your room where room treatments / base traps will help. It’s a total package and quite intensive. If the “calibrator” shows up with a Radio Shack meter and an Avia or DVE disk, you know you just got BS’ed.
To set up these new AVR’s, especially when they come with Audysey EQ, anyone with a 3rd grade reading level and basic HT system working knowledge can do it easily. You will want to run Audysey and then simply verify the settings. Audysey is not completely fool proof, so be prepared to make some changes to the settings when it is done. For instance, it will most likely set your center to large and you’ll want to change that to small. Your X-overs may also be a little weird. Just play with these some to your liking. You should be able to save the Audysey settings and then copy them to a manual user profile, then make changes as needed to that profile. You can then (should be able to) toggle back and forth between the Audysey settings and your manual settings to see what you prefer.
One area of professional calibration I do recommend (if you can afford it), is video calibration. A certified IFS video calibrator can do absolute wonders for your display. Unfortunately, the going price for this service is around $500. The calibrator will come with a laptop, meters and spend a day setting color, gamma, blacks and contrast. It’s amazing what a properly calibrated display can look like. Not very many come out of the box properly calibrated and without the proper testing equipment; you just don’t know if your display is accurately displaying the popper RGB spectrum.
