In all fairness, I feel this is just a marketing tactic that makes them appear more honest about their power ratings. Their benchtests next to comparably priced receivers tend to show fairly similar real power ratings.
The whole Onkyo being bright this is just silly. The audiophile reviewers typically say the same thing about each particular brand of receiver and that can bias opinions of potential consumers. Each make likes to market themselves to a particular audience. So, H/K is supposed to have a warm sound, Onkyo is supposed to be bright and lean on bass, Denon is supposed to be warm with a heavy low end, Yamaha is supposed to be edgy but overall powerful, Pioneer Elite is supposed to be warm... and so forth. It is all a bunch of bull.
