Ok so i got the Denon 4400H setup today. Ran the Audyssey. It did its thing but i was left wanting for the app to actually see the room response and correction. Bit the bullet, paid the dough and luckily it worked perfectly slick, no issues.
I'll post some images later. Might download that app Trev recommended to verify the room frequency response against the Denon graphs. Another small cost but i think worth doing for the verification.

Unsure about a one thing though it does mention something about this in the manual; it sets the sub distance at 21 feet when really it is at 11 feet. I'll have to read again what it says. What i'm not sure is if i can change the sub distances without the Audyssey profile coming off of use. I think i can manually change distances in the app though and then re-upload the profile.

I guess i'll also have to manually verify the individual channel corrections. So far i can't see anything about phase in the options. I know these things in the past sometimes put speakers out of phase but if a person can't change that manually then...eeech.

A few other notes about the Denon:
  1. Do NOT like the remote. Seems like i'm hunting to find things. It's not intuitive.
  2. Do NOT like their setup for switching sound DSPs or trying to set a default for an input. It is convoluted.
  3. There were more options in how to change 'sound' in my old Onkyo than there is in this new Denon. I was expecting a variety of tweaks. For example, the Onk has a feature to widen the soundstage simply by shifting more of the centre channel sound to the left and right speakers in small increments. It really helped to lessen the hole without having to buy a larger centre channel. There's nothing like that in this Denon. The menu overall is really quite simplistic allowing you to setup the basics (rename the input channel names, what's your TV size, use the Denon video tweaks or turn them off, etc.)
  4. I had the Denon turned up to 60 (out of 98 scale) to get 'normal' listening levels. I had to crank it up to 80 to get a more movie experience. That's nuts. The Onkyo on the same scale (0-100) hits ear bleed levels at 70 and has movie SPL around 60-65 with typical listening around 50 (spouse turns it down to 46-48 usually). What the hell is up with the Denon? I expected some difference in signal to output ratios but not that much.
  5. I will have to play around with this BUT, i swear after i ran the HDMI from the satellite through the Denon (previously it was hooked up directly to the LG OLED with only an optical cable for sound heading back to the Onkyo), that the picture looks alot more washed out. I checked the Denon settings and turned off any of their video processing so that's not it. I'll double check this later by putting the hdmi back directly to the TV and see if there is a picture quality difference. I will be seriously annoyed if this is the case.

"Those who preach the myths of audio are ignorant of truth."