Neon,
if you do a manual setup, how does the receiver know what reference is? Can you zero out the volume knob in a menu somewhere?
On my Pioneer it plays pink noise (your wife would like that) at what is supposed to be 75 dB, you can adjust the individual channels trims so they read that on the meter, then the system is calibrated.
On my old Sony the main, left and right, didn't have trims, the center and surrounds were relative to the mains. So you'd enable the test tone, and turn the volume up until the left channel was producing 75 (or 85) dB. Then you'd cycle to the other channels to adjust them the same. The volume control didn't have a dB scale at all, it was just a big knob. So you'd never know when you were at reference level.
