I myself am not sold on surround sound as the $ involved to do it on a high end level...the extra pre/pro,amps,speakers and cables, don't really justify the effecs on a movie...sure some are cool...but I primarily listen to music so prefer a 2 channel setup with a sub. and I still enjoy the movies that I watch...even more than I would had I allocated my $ spent on a full surround system of lesser quality (just my opinion...ymmv).
As for 4 front speakers...I think I'd just rather have 2 speakers disappear into a nice soundstage, unhampered by any extraneous objects in between or outside the speakers that might cause reflections or other kinds of distortions...I have also heard that if you have other speakers in the room that you aren't using that they act as a passive radiator or something like that...I'm probably wrong about what exactly what the problem is, but something was mentioned about other speakers in a room and their effects on sound in other threads in the past.
Just my 2c
Ellery
As for 4 front speakers...I think I'd just rather have 2 speakers disappear into a nice soundstage, unhampered by any extraneous objects in between or outside the speakers that might cause reflections or other kinds of distortions...I have also heard that if you have other speakers in the room that you aren't using that they act as a passive radiator or something like that...I'm probably wrong about what exactly what the problem is, but something was mentioned about other speakers in a room and their effects on sound in other threads in the past.
Just my 2c
Ellery