Just a comment and a question..

[royalty]

So I own an onkyo tx-sr706 and I would just like to point out that often with many songs I find this receiver to be a bit bright, especially with my rti10s. However, I also found it to be a bit bright with some monitor 50s too. One thing I did notice was that when I switch the onkyo to pure audio mode; a lot, but not all of that brightness seems to go away.....
While still not an awesome sounding for a pre it does improve the sound a bit this way. So my question is: what is causing this brightness? Is there something in the internal electronics that pushes some brightness or harmonic distortion on these that can also be turned off when pure audio is on? If so, then why would onkyo design something that imparted so much noise or baggage to signal?

[Face]

Some high end tilt is good for home theater. If you want warmth, pick up a HK.

[vc69]

Is it possible that Audyssey has you set up a little bright? Try turning it off (you are effectively bypassing it in "direct") and see if things improve.
I have a 606 and I think it is pretty good really, but I did not like it with my Monitor 50's at all. I ended up with some older LS 90's. It sounds fine with them.