I have had this unit now for 2 weeks so I have had time to learn it and figure out how best to use features. Overall, I am pleased with this new unit.
I must say make sure you pair this unit with good speakers. They don't need to be expensive, but they need to have enough room to utilize the power the AVR can deliver. I am using a 5.1 system, and recently purchased the front Left and Right speakers from Polk (ES-15) which have really made this system pop.
There are quirky settings and things to learn, but once you work through that, this system is fantastic from a sound standpoint. I used the Audeyssey set up and it was spot on.
For me, the biggest issue was knowing how to switch audio coming in (for example, through bluetooth playing Spotify only as stereo) to be played through all my speakers (hint: need to go to Option>All Zone Stereo>Start). I also had to learn to make my speakers sound the way I wanted to out of the box; the default seemed garbled and very faint; I learned for me that I needed to change my settings under Audio>Audyssey>Dynamic Volume>Light. You may want to choose Heavy or Medium setting here, but for me Light sounded best in my room.
Also, the upscaling for the video content is superb.
After syncing all my devices with CEC to turn on/off all devices, this is now a super handy feature. Also had to learn to turn off TV Audio Switching to Off under Video>HDMI Setup>TV Audio Switching>Off.
If you are looking for an out-of-box perfect system, this is not for you. But if you take time to go through all the settings, understand them and then test them for your system set up, this unit delivers EXCELLENT sound and video. Now that I have all my settings where I want them, this unit delivers 10 out of 10 sound quality.. Very happy with this purchase.
