Phew!
I've managed to wire this monster up and sonicaly first impressions are very good indeed.
As a bit of background, the supporting cast of AV equipment consists of a Pioneer 757Ai DVD, Eltax Symphony 8 Floorstanders & Centre, a pair of Eltax HT-2 Bi-polar Surrounds and a somewhat ageing (and wimpish) Yamaha Active Sub. All of this further supported by a Toshiba 42WT29 Rear Projection TV.
OK - So back to those first impressions...
First of all, the build quality of this receiver is superb - it's as heavy as a couple of paving stones and was a bit of a struggle to get into my custom built AV storage unit (into which it doesn't quite fit). More postively though, it smacks of quality - from the brushed silver finish to the gliding front panel and a dizzying array of connects at the rear.
Switching it on, to be greeted by a bold, confidence inducing LCD display I immediately connected the supplied microphone and launched into the MCACC (Auto Setup) with only a brief glance at the manual. That was fun! Not quite as loud as the manual's warnings seemed to suggest although it did an excellent job of balancing out the various elements of my surround setup in a less than ideal environment. Not to mention the barrage of fireworks erupting outside! I was extremely impressed by the minutae of adjustments automatically made to timing, timbre. balance, etc, etc. All in all - hours of painful tweaking saved. Great - unless you are the audiophile masochist type who likes that sort of thing.
So far, I've tried the Monsters Inc. DVD in THX Theatre mode and several CD's in Prologic II Music mode and I am very pleased with the results.
I'll keep you posted over the next few days as the rose tinted glow wears off and I get a chance to put the machine through it's paces.
DVD-Audio, SACD, DTS, MP3.