I heard the Sherwood Newcastle with Trinnov. It was part of a system with speakers very unlike my own. The other system I heard was a Krell pre-pro with professional EQ. Similar speakers to system #1. Much better amps in use than those of the Sherwood receiver. I have not heard any of the Audyssey systems.

The Sherwood was reasonably good in a theater sense. Pretty convincing sound field. Good dialogue intelligibility (something I have trouble with in inferior systems). A little congested at times. Good height. The sound field was a little narrow, a little shallow.

The Krell (an old model with NO HDMI), as it should have been, was better. More of that you-are-there feeling. No congestion. Cleaner, almost sparkling in the higher frequencies. Huge, wide soundstage for theater and music. So much more depth to the audio image.

The biggest difference was on the musical side. Absolutely blows the Sherwood out of the water. How much was due to the amps? Hard to say. The Sherwood sounds pretty grimy in comparison.

Of course, a brand new current Krell is 10 to $12,000. (Unless you get the $30,000 model.) I was looking at an old model with a special deal of about $4,000 including professional set-up. But what a pain in the neck to go with no HDMI inputs. I could live with the video side, but many newer A/V devices do not have analog 5.1 out. For example, the Roku has stereo analog out, and 5.1 HDMI out.