I believe you guys, I used to have a system which IMO was quite decent, it was the first stereo of any quality I've ever owned and loved it, I found taming the lower freq insanely hard but did my best.
Then Audyssey came down to reasonable prices so I picked up an AVR at a steal of a price and let it do it's thing. Well I found out how lame my abilities to tune the speakers and the room really were, some of it was subtle and some of it not so much, I did later alter some things slightly but overall it was much better. Now if Audyssey is not so well regarded anymore, and it did so much better with the sound than I did fiddling with it for months then that should put things in perspective as to the mountain you guys are asking me to climb haha.
Of course after some years I got better at distinguishing good from bad and no longer thought flat was a thing to be fixed lol, however I've been apart from my boyhood love for some time now, I've fed my ears garbage for a while because of life events and circumstances and now I don't even remember what good sounds like anymore. Since hearing is adaptive I would not be able to do it by ear, with a Mic and EQ I probably could but if I'm spending on that and my time is limited and I'd just like to enjoy music I may as well get a cool new toy.
Now that is my lame life story in audio, I still don't know which of those miniDSP gizmos is best for my situation, but that is ok, after more reading I feel like I will do alright with the DDRC-22D regardless so I may as well.