spd2demun wrote:
Yay, SJ! How you can do all that in your head with no equipment in front of you, just amazes me!!!
User manuals downloadable in PDF format. Greatest thing since sliced bread. 
Still...you make it sound easier than it is.
The Bose 901s (like any speakers) have a non-linear frequency and phase response. The equalizer that they come with is designed to compensate for the non-linearities so that the speakers end up producing a nice flat frequency response. The equalizer also adds some punch to the low end.
In your setup, the Onkyo's Audyssey 2EQ will perform the same function by compensating for the speaker non-linearities and will compensate for the room acoustics as well. After that if you want to add some low end, you can do that with the audio adjustments on the Onkyo or through one of the listening modes.
These newer receivers that have this calibrated microphone automatic equalization are incredible. My Pioneer VSX-1018 has this same feature (they call it something different but it does the same thing). The equalization is so good that it has literally devalued speakers as an item category. With the computer-perfect equalization, you don't need $3000 speakers any more for audiophile quality, you can make a $400 set sound identical.
Audio guru? I dunno. Audio snob? Probably. I've spoiled myself by having a finely-tuned 5.1 system in my house for years as well as an ISF-calibrated HD TV, etc. So I'm probably also a video snob, computer snob, coffee snob, ... the list goes on. Just kinda snobby all the way around.
Well, he was able to get everything connected. VCR does not display anything on the screen, but we get sound. Same with the DVD player. Also, the DVD player doesn't have a progressive/normal slide switch on it. He had to put it on the other tv and go to the menu in order to change it to Progressive. We only get sound, no picture. He's messing with the connections now.
He's a little disappointed in this receiver because it seems to only work well with "newer" components like the CD player. The tape deck works, but you have to crank the volume higher than normal in order to hear the tape. I guess when you get an HDTV and want to connect everything to the receiver, you also have to buy all new components too!
My phonograph won't connect unless we purchase some kind of additional module to plug into it. I'm sure they don't make HDMI tape decks or phonographs, do they? 
Here's another problem. We setup the TV according to the instructions from SomeJoe and the picture isn't being displayed full screen. We have to go to Zoom and put it on Stretch. But, then the words at the bottom (i.e. show description, time) are getting cut off. What do we need to change? Thank you!
Sweet! 
Glad that you did finally get everything working!
The dialogue coming out of the center speaker is normal -- this is the way that 5.1 audio is supposed to work. It centralizes the dialogue right near the screen so that background sound effects, music, etc. take advantage of the stereo effects of the front left/front right speaker placement.
I would advise not removing the center speaker since it is designed to work that way, especially since you now have a Blu-Ray player which will have extremely good audio on most discs.
Also, don't test the audio using a U-Verse SD channel, since those are only 2-channel audio. Test with a 5.1 Blu-Ray disc or at minimum, a U-Verse HD channel that has 5.1 audio. Those will illustrate how the system is processing sound.
