I am having a great time with my new audio system. It is almost worth the fallout from the wife. When I first hooked up my 990 to my 2 "large" L/R and one center speaker, I used the included mic, placing it where my head would be, and ran the calibration program. The result was neutral L/R, but +3 volume the for center speaker. When listening to audio, the center speaker was over-riding and I tuned it down to -1 before I felt the speakers were equalized in volume. My question is two fold. Is relative speaker volume the only thing the calibration program adjusts? Also, are there different configurations for movie versus pure audio listening? Thanks in advance, probably to Gonk! Sorry to hear you are having hip problems.

The auto setup check distances and levels. That's it.

An aside to that answer... Calibrating by ear is tricky business - I remember doing a "by ear" calibration and then checking it with an SPL meter back when I first invested in a meter, and discovering that I was off by as much as 3dB or more in some channels. When dealing with a three-channel system, you'll need to become aware of what surround mode you are using. Some modes will put a lot of material directly into the center, which may catch you off guard if you aren't used to it. And that leads into the other question...
The 990 does not have separate "movie" and "music" speaker setup options. It does have a number of different processing modes. For two-channel music listening, I prefer some form of plain old stereo ("Upsample" is what I typically use, to be exact). In that mode (since you have large fronts and no sub), you will get the tried and true left/right channels only. With that in mind, my CD input (which gets its signal from the digital output of my DVD player) is set to provide stereo output from PCM stereo inputs.

For two-channel TV and movies, I tend to use Pro Logic IIx to expand that stereo signal to 7.1 channels. If you use Pro Logic IIx-Music, you can control how much the center channel is involved (the 990 manual has some good guidance on how the Pro Logic II settings in the 990's setup menu control that).

Here's what I might suggest: use the manual test tones in the 990 and compare how the left, center, and right channel test tones sound with the center is at -1 or at +3. If +3 doesn't sound significantly exaggerated with the individual test tones, experiment a bit with the different processing modes. Also, if you have access to a sound meter, you can always check it manually.
You are most welcome. As for the hip, thank you - the bone has been completely healed for a bit over two months now, so the problems are much reduced from the summer and early fall. The leg muscles atrophied a fair bit during the 19 weeks that I didn't use the leg, but I can now generally walk well enough to hide that as long as I don't have steep slopes, stairs to walk up, or any need to run or jump. The screws may come out in a year or so (they backed out slightly as the bone mended and tend to poke a bit at times), but I'm in no rush to worry with that.

Gonk,
You just need to remind yourselves NOT to carry heavy stuff. This is a must. Very best regards and happy holidays.

Kwok Lau

Actually, the bone fully healed - so structurally there are no restrictions. I had a transverse fracture of the femoral neck due to plain bad luck when I fell, but the bone is completely sound now aside from the three pieces of surgical steel still tucked in there. It's just the muscles around it that aren't back up to snuff yet, which does impose some restrictions that are very self-regulating regarding heavy lifting. That, and I would prefer not to be hit very hard on the right hip anywhere near the screw heads...