this is the reason why a lot of people do not enjoy or would have different view of the result of Audyssey. Audyssey as what the founder said, calibrates to set things to "reference setting" or closer to it and any alteration on the result make it preference setting.
in the case of sir mark's ht set up, setting has always been at reference
In my view, all of us are trying to achieve the same thing -- enjoy a beautiful audio experience.
In the analog world, there are particular rules -- don't use any processing, no equalization, no DSP chips and preferably no subwoofer. I'm pretty certain that you can achieve excellent sound with these rules, provided that you have a room which is a minimum of 100 square meters, a minimum of acoustic treatment, Focal Grande Utopias or equivalent speakers and adequate amplification. Most people don't have these so they use speaker cables, interconnects, tubes and whatever equipment to achieve what sounds right to them.
In the digital world, people don't follow these rules. They use a lot more equalization and acoustic treatment + they use subwoofers.
I prefer the digital world ... but that doesn't mean that sometime in the future, I might still get a TT -- just for fun.
Understand what I'm saying -- the analog world rules are interesting, fun and challenging! But that's just not me.