Let me clarify here. I've never owned an Onkyo and I'm not trying to be negative about them. I'm simply saying that from what I have read on various boards Onkyo owners feel Audessey collapses their soundstage whereas Marantz owners feel Audessey works well.
Well, if I gave you my anecdote, then you could say Onkyo has the best implementation, EVAH!
I've said it a number of times here, but the implementation of my XT was after about double digit treatments, and the improvement was about nearly as dramatic as the inclusion of the treatments. However, this was
after the treatments. That's a pretty darn good anecdote.
Perhaps that's me coming off as a Marantz Fanboy. Totally understandable. Nothing I said has much backing behind it, not even my personal experience. I was merely pointing out that perhaps Audessey isn't worthwhile for Onkyo/Integra owners compared to source direct. Sorry if I offended anyone.
Over pretty much the entire duration of my interest in this hobby, I would put Marantz at the very bottom of the list as far as Audyssey implementation, of the numerous brands.
If there was a way for me to obtain good information about the processing power of any, well, processor, it would be my #1 factor. If I ever implement Dolby Volume (or Dynamic Volume), matrixing for not only rears but perhaps heights as well in a 11.1/11.2 system, of course after decoding the advanced bitstreams to begin with, and oh yeah, having MultEQ XT32 filters galore implemented up the yin yang over 13 channels all simultaneously, well yeah, that's a pretty big processing load.
Marantz may (I mean did they), have FINALLY given us enough processing power in their current line so that we can actually do much simpler things like matrix for rears while having MultEQ applied (I'm not even talking about XT yet, which was only offered this generation as far as Marantz is concerned; I've had my Onkyo XT for a few years now, for $600), or a simple unzipping/decoding of TrueHD or DTS-MA while having MultEQ applied. You heard me right, for about the entire duration of my interest in AV, Marantz units could not even simply accept a bitstream and simultaneously apply the relatively long in the tooth vanilla MultEQ.