My sister and brother in law ordered a complete home theater system today for $5K.

[Ty]

The receiver and speakers produce excellent sound after I tweaked it with the EQ. It sounds MUCH better than without the EQ. Without the EQ it still sounds very good but depends on the volume. With the EQ I could turn the volume to 0dB which is really loud and the music would still be perfect. Anyway the SPL meter is not really necessary since my problem was frequency response rather than trying to match the sound pressure levels of the individual speakers relative to their placement and room acoustics. All the speaker levels should be fairly equal after running the YPAO.

No doubt it should sound better as you're able to tweak on a fairly granular level, to your particular room acoustics and aural preferences.

What YPAO doesn't cover and it nearly impossible to do by ear, is take care of low frequencies. Subs are notoriously difficult to do 'by ear' and in fact people usually end up dialing it up more than they should.

As to the RC, the absence of tactile feedback won't be an issue really because the main controls are physical buttons ie volume, channel, input, etc. I just wanted something that had a large lit screen and macro functions and customizations. The RC is really for my sister and her husband since they get confused with all the buttons from multiple remotes. It would be easier for them to push one button that has a custom macro programmed. Also I could get the RC for around $90 which is pretty cheap for what you're getting. Oh btw I might get the new AX-4000 which you can program with a PC instead of the AV-3100. Tough choice since the 4000 doesn't allow editing button labels.

Well the good thing about the Harmony line of universal remotes is that you don't need to change modes (and perhaps the Sony does this as well) to affect different pieces of HT equipment. For example, when watching TV; hitting Channel Up/Down sends a signal to the cable box but hitting Volume Up/Down sends a signal to the receiver. I don't need to select Cable box then hit Channel Up/Down or select Receiver for Volume Up/Down to work. The remote just knows which equipment it should communicate with.

The set up is done with a fairly easy to use UI on the web.

 

[PC-Engine]

What YPAO doesn't cover and it nearly impossible to do by ear, is take care of low frequencies. Subs are notoriously difficult to do 'by ear' and in fact people usually end up dialing it up more than they should.

That's true, but as you know the sub level isn't that critical to get perfect with regards to movies. It's really down to personal preference. Some movie goers like bigger louder explosions and as long as you know where the reference level should be to begin with you can increase or decrease the LFE channel accordingly. The LFE channel was set very well by the YPAO. The problem is that with music listening the setting on the sub itself was too low. This isn't really the fault of the YPAO analyzer since the LFE level only applies to movies vs regular 2 ch CD audio. The LFE level adjustment on the receiver allows me to dial it down for movies while the adjustment on the sub allows dialing it up for music. It's similar to the volume trim adjustment where you can adjust both sides independently.