I get what your saying, John. You tell the system if there is a sub attached or not. However, if you proceed with the Audyssey tests after having indicated, 'Yes there is a sub,' there is still a portion (at least in my in my older Denon 3608's version of Audyssey) where it does attempt to "sense" the sub before continuing.
Due to a problem I had that was resolved with a firmware upgrade, Audyssey would send the initial test tones to all five speakers and then to the sub and the result would be that it could not continue and an error message akin to "speaker not detected" would appear. If I told it there was no sub, it would complete the test on just the five speakers successfully and continue on.
After the firmware upgrade, it still sent test tones to all 5.1 speakers but the missing speaker message went away and it would continue on to the next phase of tests.
I believe you are correct in your intent. I just wanted to share this with the OP for further information.
