It may be too early to say anything conclusive, but so far I am impressed by its performance in that set up. By the way, you have been right all along, and I totally agree with you now, that if one only needs 2 to 7 channels, there is no need to pay extra dollars for the much more expensive X4400H, especially if it is used as a prepro.
Absolutely, I would say better, you can see in the comparison graphs I posted. The black curve was Audyssey, first attempt, using 6 positions, with the sub's PEQ off, phase at 0, XO at maximum; and no sub crawling at all and without fine tuning with the editor app. The graph looks as good or better than the one for using REW with the minidsp, plus the laborious effect of subwoofer crawling.
Using 1/12 smoothing, the two curves sort of look like one for the most part, virtually identical.
I know you won't care about the subjective part of my review. So, suffice to say that I've tried very hard to listen for the presumed harshness, brightness etc., that audiophiles might expect from an AVR. Surprisingly, or not, I am hearing the same smooth and neutral sound that I hear from the separates, be it violin, percussion, brass, or even pianos. My reference is always live music.
I am going to spend many more hours listening to music that I am very familiar with, before I decide on using it in the HT room or not . Either way, I will likely keep the AV8801, now that I know Audyssey is able to tame those big bumps in the lower mid range. It also managed to improve the nasty dip at around 85 Hz to an acceptable level. Regardless of those graphs, the bottom line is, I have never heard the LS50 sounding that good until now.
