Fury, I use a Denon 3805 with S33-25 package from Ascend. The only calibration that I've done was with the auto setup. The sound is great!! One warning about the Denon 3805 though, it has a plethora of features. If you don't need them all, you might consider it's little brother, the 2805 and save a few hundred dollars.

As far as cables, Curtis and Cestlavie got the right idea. From the research I've done and reading the many threads on this and other sites, the main factor for cables is the resistance. You should chose the appropiate gauge based on the length of you run. For 8 ohm speakers, 16 gauge would be sufficient for up to 50ft run. I got some 14 gauge wire and banana plugs from Parts Express and put them together for my system. Connecting your sub is a little different though. Resistance is not a big factor, but shielding is.