Quote Originally Posted by Bernd
What you found is exactely what had bothered me always going down the Multi channel route. Good speakers, placed well and driven by decent electronics will make 2 channel sing.
Bingo. It was TtT's contention that there would be no sonic compromises for a given budget between a 2 channel and MC setup. I disagree. First of all, I cannot afford a 5 channel variation of what I already have. And I'm not going to replace my 'stats just to get the MC effect. If I were to start from scratch today with no equipment AND no software, then I might think differently.

I have heard a rather incredible MC setup at Seacliff with Harry Pearson's all Maggie system. 20.1s in the front, 3.6s in the rear, dual MGC-1 centers, four Nola Thunderbolt subs, C-J Multi channel pre, Edge amps, Meitner DAC and transport, Valhalla cable everything. Nice. Yet, his main two channel system is more impressive sounding. There is necessarily a tradeoff for a given budget at anything less than the very best. Now, I could probably live with the massive Sound Lab based MC system put together recently at RMAF... That is once I got a much bigger room!

I use my modest 5.1 HT system for movies where its cool to have stuff coming from behind me.

rw