Thanks very much for your comments and suggestions, and I agree that us 805 owners must stick together although there seems to be a lot of lucky souls around! I thought that I remembered reading somewhere that the 805 could be talked into going flat, but these Audyssey curve discussions always give me a headache
and I usually get lost. Plus all the talk about the different listening modes just adds to my confusion. I have always just used plain, unmodified, listening modes (DTS HD-MA, TrueHD, etc.) because, for one reason, I was never convinced
that in my system any of them helped.
What gets me in trouble with most of the listening modes are my two POS speakers that I use for channels 6 & 7. They are leftover ceiling speakers (not included in my signature BTW) from days gone by that are not only poor in AQ but in the wrong location for a 7.1 system. Therefore, I leave them off unless the source Blu-ray has a true 7.1 track then I leave them in the game (although I cannot say that I ever notice them). Long story, but I am stuck with these two speakers so I have to live with them or just turn them off.
So, I do not want to use speakers 6 & 7 if they degrade channels 4 & 5. This would seem to be the case in most listening modes as I understand them. Over on AVS I asked many months ago if there was a listening mode that would take a 5.1 audio track and convert it to 7.1 without degrading the audio from channels 4 & 5. As I recall one of the noted experts replied that he believed that the only mode that I could use to light-up speakers 6 & 7 without degrading, at least to some degree, channels 4 & 5 was PLIIX in the music mode. He added that when in the music mode the audio in channels 4 & 5 are not changed. I did try to do some research on exactly how channels 6 & 7 are derived from 4 & 5, but no luck; company secrets?? Anyway, I gave it a go, but I could not tell the difference.
With this long and very sad story, do you see any way for me to go flat (other than in a casket
)? I guess I could just turn-off speakers 6 & 7 since they are useless anyway; would that open up some opportunities?
Actually, I really do not notice the roll-off anyway. Maybe my room is bright (likely), or my hearing is wayyyy flat by the time Audyssey starts the roll off (also likely). It just bugs me that if there is a simple way to make the system sound better I would like to use it (even if I cannot hear the difference - - others may, which is important).