Here's some thoughts on the X4000 after a couple weeks of use. My speaker setup is 9.1 with wides and backs. I have a B+K ST1400s2 powering the mains.
I'll say right here in the beginning that I love the sound I'm getting. Very clear detailed sound.
Yesterday I set up my X4000 from scratch again and it was really easy having done it before. I did a some stereo music listening before running Audessey just to see how much difference there is. Night and day really. I admit I did not spend a lot of time setting things up to try and tune things without Audessey. I did do the bass management though.
I really like listening to music and movies and like new toys. I took time placing my speakers and sub to get the sound I like but I don't let myself get so far into the HT craziness to start doing acoustic room measurements. Nothing wrong with it but I don't want to become more obsessed and start finding problems that I'm happy not knowing. So I'm a big fan of Audessey. I used XT on the 3808 and now XT32. It is great stuff. The XT32 is a definite improvement over XT (assuming they are implemented the same.) The bass integration from the mains to the sub is fantastic now and has settled down my "need" for a 2nd sub. I know I'll end up with one some day but there is no rush. Just make sure to read the guides on the AVS forum before running the auto-setup. I hate reading reviews by people that should know better that don't measure properly and don't like the results. The X4000's setup wizard does show proper mic placements which is nice.
I am new to wides with this AVR and my first impressions were negative. I couldn't figure out what the big deal was. But I kept moving the speakers and re-running XT32 and finally got it right. Now I am loving the wides for movies and TV. For music... well it took me a long time to get used to matrixed 5.1 music so I think this will be the same way. There are definite differences between DSX and NeoX. For music it is really a preference thing. They both sound good and my comparisons are with default settings. I think that NeoX has a stronger front soundstage and DSX has better "you're in the music" feel. And just listening in 2.1 sounds awesome. For movies I really prefer DSX. There was one scene in Band of Brothers where the guys are walking through a large spacious building and with DSX it sounded horrible. It sounded like they where in a cavern not a large hallway or maybe just a bad reverb added. I was watching with my wife so I didn't stop and mess with settings but went back to the scene when I was alone because I just couldn't believe that the source was that bad. The source was fine in 5.1 so I tried NeoX and that sounded good too. That is the only problem scene that I noticed with DSX everything else was fine. So for movies I'll stick with NeoX.
My wife and I use z2+3 all day almost every day for music, podcasts and news on the radio. The one thing that is still driving me crazy has to do with using zone 2. My z2 and z3 are set up for audio only using the pre-outs. I only have one TV and don't need HDMI anywhere but the TV room. If I am using the main zone and turn on or off z2 the main zone cuts out for a few seconds. This does not happen with z3. This happens with any source including the tuner. As far as I can tell I have all z2 HDMI options turned off. I know that the X4000 will turn on main zone and switch it to the network sources if those are selected from z2-3 but is this supposed to happen when z2 is power cycled? I really hope we get a fw update to deal with this nonsense. I love the receiver and it's flexibility but this seems like they just didn't think the zones through.
The integrated network features are nice and very convenient but the remote app implementation was bad. They should get a new app designer to redesign it. There are minor annoyances like when you select HD Radio it brings you to the tuner screen every time. I only listen to one station and have to wait for the tuner page to load before I can hit the back button. Using Pandora or Spotify is a great feature but the navigation is not intuitive. The web interface is good for settings (using the keyboard to re-name zones and inputs is a plus) but not for day to day control.
So if you are on the fence about X4000 I say go for it. The annoyances aren't so bad that they outweigh the positives. And if you only use the main zone there should be nothing holding you back.
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