Turns out this thread was much ado about nothing. I received the EX500 today, The seller just didn't know what was in the box, or didn't equate "little black fried egg looking thing" to "microphone." So nothing needs to be ordered or even stressed out about after all.
I'm pretty impressed with MCAAC overall. It got distances and level-matching spot-on. The EQ didn't do much, but then I designed the crossovers specifically for this room and the speakers' current placement and there's basically nothing wrong with them for it to correct, so that's to be expected. It correctly identified my main speakers - 12" Tannoy dual concentrics in sealed enclosures with an F3 of around 80Hz - as "small." The only thing I had to override was its sub crossover, which it set to 200Hz even though my sub (Peerless XLS12 and XLS passive radiator powered by a 250W plate amp) is behind me. Admittedly, on a more complicated setup - I'm using it in my home office, which is 2.1-channel - there's more to screw up.
About the EX500/VSX-50 I have not much to say. I tested the DVD player to make sure the optical/coax/5.1 inputs work, but I'll probably end up selling it. With an iMac in the room I don't need it, and the Samsung universal player in my main system looks more impressive than the EX-500 one, even though the Pio calls itself "Elite." The VSX-50 is the first piece of audio gear I've bought since age 11 that used spring clips to connect the speakers, so I had to take the bananas off of my speaker wires and replace them with pin connectors that came with my surround sound wires. But they work fine, strictly speaking, even if they look cheap and feel crude.But they work fine, strictly speaking, even if they look cheap and feel crude. I connected to my iMac using Rat Shack's brilliant universal optical cable, which has ends that rotate to reveal either a standard Toslink or a headphone minijack-sized/shaped digital audio plug like the digital outputs Apple hides in most of their current equipment. The interface is decent enough, and I'm glad one doesn't need an on-screen display to set it up. It is slightly noisier than the Panasonic XR55 in my main system, and on a quick listen over there seems to have less power. It has plenty of power reserves for this system, though with 94dB/w/m speakers sitting about 7 feet from my ears there's little that wouldn't! But in terms of form factor and self-noise, it's a step up from the analog separates I had been using. Thanks mostly to bypassing the iMac's DAC and subpar analog output stage, I would think.
