Yes, Audyssey - or any other DSP room correction/EQ device - is a good tool for helping systems/acoustics out. This is certain. As a final tune for your system, I think these are necessary, particularly in typical small home systems, shared entertainment spaces, and most any situation where you're not dealing with all out fully dedicated and engineered acoustic spaces, sure.
That however does NOT FIX fundamental flaws in initial setup parameters and considerations.
Here's what something like Audyssey WILL NOT DO:
1) account for/fix acoustic "holes in the response curve"!
(place a speaker/seat where there's a hole in the
response, and you'll ALWAYS have a hole in the sound)
2) properly adjust for phase between ALL listening
positions and speaker locations, in relation to each
other and the subwoofers!
3) properly "aim" or "toe-in" your loud speakers for
even coverage and tonality across all seating locations
4) fix for inherently placing loud speakers "too wide" in
relation to one another (causing undefined oundstage,
soft transients, and week overall imaging.
5) teach you to properly place loudspeakers so their not
placed too close together, creating too narrow of a
soundstage, constricting envelopment, and cramping
steering
5) properly place speakers for proper steering and
envelopement
6) Adjust phase between multiple subwoofers for accurate
phase from all listening positions in relation to each.
7) properly address first order refelctions in the room
from listeing positions in relation to speakers
8) accurately adjust and/or deal with "reverb" (rt60) in
the room (you got too much bass and overhang to
replicate a large acoustic space - room sounds "small")
9) accurately predict and adjust for a good crossover
between speakers and subs (Even Audyssey gets it wrong)
10)Help you chose correct gear allowing for maximum focus
impact, dialog inteligibility, resolution, overall
system matching, etc (years of audiophile experience
can't be erased and made up for with Audyssey, sorry.)
11)Can't replace refined equipment, and what it offers,
beyond what EQ'ing can do.
12)Nor can fancy EQ's help you adequatly select the proper
types, amounts, and locations of acoustic treatments
necessary to get the best sound from a room/system.
Basically, Audyssey and the likes helps greatly, yes. Still, it cannot fix foundational errors, and educate someone on how to put together a complicated multichannel system, and expect world beatter kind of results! It's just not gunna happen...unless you get real REAL lucky.
I mean we're talking 7 speaker, a subwoofer or two, multiple seating positions (likely), various acoustical issues to be properly addressed (thes rooms are SMALL), and a myriad of other issues that most novices aren't gunna have a clue about (if you don't know what's doing what, how can you fix it?)
Bottom line, can't replace experience with gadgets..and you can't get me to believe someone who's using Audyssey on their denon, to EQ out their Bose system, has the end-all-be-all system! Um, no
