Mr. Peabody I am agreeing with the theater bypass option in that with a preamp or integrated with this option may be the economical way to go. I keep forgeting that there are quite a few units out there with this option now. And another could be that the speakers are just naturaly too bright for his tastes. I know horn speakers for the most part are harder to tame due to the natural sound amplifying effects of the horns themselves. I sold Onkyo for a while when I worked selling higher end stuff and I never found them to be sonically bright but I did not find yamaha to be dull in the higher frequencies either and we sold Onkyo,Yamaha and Denon and all three were good quality components for the money.