Speaker out of phase...what is it with people and this concept? I too have a "Bruce", who has a very nice system, Yamah RX-Z9 or some huge monstrosity of a a/v receiver, 7 of B&W 700 series speakers and a big Velodyne sub to boot...The guy had the surrounds wired wrong (backs and sides were mixed up) and they were out of phase to boot. The sub's xo was maxed out and the volume was way too low.
To top it all off he had the receiver stuck in "night mode" to compress then dynamics, and the levels on the speakers were horrible.
What's worse, this freakin' receiver has the grand-daddy version of YPAO in it, I'm not sure how it could possibly sound this bad unless the guy purposely avoided the manual.

He couldn't believe how good his system sounded, and then thought I was some sort of miracle worker when I made it sound even better.
Being the Thrifty-o-phile that I am, it really ticked me off that money bags could just walk into a store after Christmas and buy all this stuff on a whim, then butcher it.

Cam, you'll have to teach me that forearm grinding trick...