The current Denon AVR-587 is fine enough for music (3.0 now mind you) but it positively sucks at movie dialog. I tend to think this is the Emptek's asking for more than it can push out at lower volumes. We tend to watch our movies on the quieter side in a large 17x32x9 room.
That usually has to do with bad room acoustics and/or placements of both speakers/listener/furniture, and very often it's the speakers themselves. I'm not saying you're wrong, but hmmm. Can you test the speakers with a different amp just to see?
1. Huge difference in SQ for all component-based system given 5-10 yrs. old? I like the idea of upgrading to a better pre/pro later and keeping an amp indefinitely.
I like that idea too, but I'm currently using a receiver (which happens to have a beefy amp) as a pre/pro, and my next pre/pro will likely be a receiver yet again. But, I like the outboard amp. I might vote for receiver + 3ch or that 5ch amp you're looking at.
2. Audyssey could help me a lot as our room is full of weird stuff, with wall mounted speakers to boot. I am totally willing to manually calibrate with a meter if necessary. May do so anyway just to learn. Given Anthem's incredible reputation and my willingness to go manual, does Audyssey really matter?
Yes, it matters to those who benefit from it. It's basically priority #1 for me when hunting processors, and for me, it would be XT32 of which there are only 4 choices last I looked.
If you want to try yourself, you will need to buy an outboard device, Behringer or whatever, laptop, microphone, and get some software like the free REW. Then you start going nuts with measurements, and then correlating the data, and that's just for one position. Audyssey XT runs 640 sweeps over 8 positions, and then can apply hundreds of filters. I get XT done in 30 min. I've done it twice already in the last few days. I still get to tweak manually both pre and post Audyssey. The pre is to take out the initial nasty bite of some very bad issues, and the post is for personal preference at the subwoofer level (using my Crown amplifier's BandManager software).
3. Is going to full multieq xt in the 876 going to make an audible difference at lower volumes?
Of course, and since you would also get Dynamic Vol/EQ, even more so. I don't have those latter things.
4. The AVR+Amp seems like the best bet but I am hesitant to go from sub par to mediocre for movie dialog. My wife is very unimpressed with my fancy new hobby so far. It could be a nice bridge to better things. The Empteks are known for being power hungry and I think that's what's happening now. Should I wait on an amp until I can afford a new Outlaw 7500 or something similarly beefy?
I'd try the UPA5 because it's supposed to be a performer, yet is so affordable. Otherwise to spend so much more on amplifiers in your situation, i feel you may be throwing money away.
5. HD radio is something we would like, but I figure we may just go to internet radio via the TV, PS3, or a Mac Mini in the future. Maybe even a separate component tuner. What kind of value is this in the 876 really?
No opinion.
