So far with my 886 I have preferred to leave the Audyssey MultEQ XT disengaged. The down side is that this means that I cannot engage Dynamic EQ - which I really like. (Dynamic Volume I've found no need for.) Since I was not happy with the level settings that Audyssey chose after calibration, I do not trust its judgement regarding EQ. Now if the designers had allowed me to display a before and after curve AND make tweaks to the after, that might be a whole different ballgame. But right now you i) can't display before or after curves of any kind, ii) can't even see the EQ setting changes that it has made, and iii) if you want to manually EQ you must start from scratch (ie. no tweaking!). That's my single biggest disappointment - and if Outlaw is listening I hope that their implementation of Trinnov does not have these limitations and does have these missing features.

In any case the differences between Audyssey MultEQ on and off are fairly small (to the ear) in my room. Vocals are more forward with it on, there's a brighter high end, but no noticeable difference in the bass. (But as I have posted before, I'm starting with perfectly flat bass from 15-100Hz anyhow, so I would not expect to hear any difference there.)

Dynamic EQ works incredibly well. Shame I can't use it alone.

All of the other functions and features on the 886 are perfect. Flat frequency response, no distortion. No noise. (All as I would have expected - again as I have posted previously). There are so many features, and so much flexibility, that this has raised my one other problem with the 886: the owner's manual skimps out far too much on necessary detail. No problems with Chenglish. The problem is that there are simply no explanations for many things. For example there are sub outputs in any addition to the stereo RCA outputs for Zones 2 and 3. But nowhere does it say anything about that sub output. Does it have a crossover, filters, level control, etc? You'd never know from the manual. All it says is "Zone 2 sub output." Hope you're still taking notes Outlaws!

My bottom line is that I aim extremely happy with the 886 - even with what I have mentioned above. It cost me no more than what I would likely have paid for a delivered 997. It easily accommodates my numerous component connections. And best of all: it's NOT made in China! Hope you noted that one too Outlaws!