2.1 or 3.1

[mswarren]

Hi Guys,

I'm after a bit of advice, please.

I'm renovating my house soon, and am creating a kitcken / dining / sitting room. It will be an open plan living space, and I plan to add a plasma to a false chimney breast that we will constuct.

I already have full 5.1 in the lounge, for movies etc, and imagine the sitting room will be used for more day to day viewing.

My question is, do you think that I should go for a 2.1 or a 3.1 setup? I've not got a sensible place for any surround channels.

I'm planning on using in-wall speakers, so will sdd a sub to handle the bottom end.

So I think the choice is 2 channel amp and 2 speakers, or an AV reciever, and an L C R arrangement.

What do people think? Or is there something else I should be looking at?

Thanks in advance, Matthew

[EriX]

I think many people will suggest the use of a centre as 90% or something of the dialogue comes through the centre channel which has to be mixed out to the left and right in its absence. I ran a 3.0 setup for quite a while after finding dialogue to be indistinct with a 2.0 setup, the addition of the centre made a big difference even if it was a cheap speaker.

Regards
Eric

[IWC Dopplel]

Interestingly there is a school of thought that the center is not always an improvement (obvioulsy settings will need changing)

I suspect full range very high quality 2 channel speakers with very good imaging would produce a more than acceptable result. For smaller lower end I suspect the center will add and be a significant worthwhile addition