The EAD Classic is wonderful in surround as it is incredible in 2 channel! You are right, a nightmare to set up, calibrate (although it should come with it's own microphone for calibration) but once complete, happiness. There is no on screen programming, no display, so you must rely on pushing buttons in the proper order. One issue you MUST know before buying is, yes, it plays Dolby Digital, but as for DTS, it PROBABLY ONLY plays DTS in LD format. These units were not made for DTS DVD (not sure what is different) but some units, and a very few some, had been upgraded for DTS DVD's. This was about a $800 upgrade that really few did.
If the person using it knows it works on DVD DTS than great, if unsure, I would bet only DTS for LD's is decoded.
Hope this helps, let me know if I can help any more.
Dan
kdedwards@home.com