1 lump or 2?

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How prolific do people think 7.1 will become over 6.1?

Should I look at getting a matching front centre (78c) to be used on my rear surround channel 6, or should I look at a matched pair of rear surrounds (78ds) with an amp and use my 7.1 pre outs? I know only my ears will be able to tell me what I think is best for my deaf tinitus enhanced hearing, but asking people their opinions never hurt anyone, much.

This is all pie in the sky as I have just upgraded and it will probably be a 12 month decision process as the last one took about that long, give or take 6 months, so I'm just testing the water at the moment.

I guess in 12 months kit will have moved on again and everyone will be talking about 12.3 channel music, with chips implanted in our brains/ears being the norm and we'll all think we're Johnny Menomic.
 
I personally would have thought it would be fairly high - most people with full size packages can typically only buy speakers in pairs and so when going out to buy will automatically go from 5.1 to 7.1 and only space constraints would generally mean that one goes to storage (the use of a centre for the rear speaker does appear to be very low)

With satalite systems the ability to buy a single additional speaker is much higher but with almost all amps now being 7.1 and not wanting to be out done by their full size brothers I would predict an increase number of people going for the 2 additional speakers.

As to the 2nd question - in my opinion if you are listening to movies rather than multichannel music you are not going to harm the sound by having the additional speaker and will most likely give a more enveloping sound however if you do have hearing difficulties it will certainly be worth doing a test with a 5.1, 6.1 and 7.1 system to see which shoulds best to you.
 
Astaroth, thanks for your comments.

The tinitus comment was a throw away one. I don't have hearing difficulties, but at the moment I have not been able to hear that great a difference personally between 6.1 or 7.1 when listening/watching movies in demo room tests.

I am just curious what people think about the benfits of a pair of extra rear surrounds, rather than a single di-pole? (regular centre style speaker? eg another 78c) bearing in mind in my current (at least for the next 2 years) situation of investigating another amp/power amp for a specific pair using preouts, rather than just a single extra surround utilising the 6th channnel of my amp.
 
i personally bought a better centre speaker and stuck my old one as a surround back, and i think it sounds just as good as when i had a 7.1 setup [with my sony str de-697, i have now "downgraded" (what a joke) to 6.1, and much prefer it (be it the amp or the speaker set up? whatever im waffling just gonna put this whole bit in big old brackets!)]

its also far better than 5.1 imo, in the movies that are truly 6.1, although i find too much sound comes out the SB (considering my SB is not as good as my LS and RS) when matrixing from 5.1 > 6.1.
 
Intresting chedmaster. I think i'll stick with my 5.1 setup for the next few months until I find the correct matching centre to use as a surround back, rather than spanking some more filthy lucre on a pair for 7.1 and an amp to drive them. Especially considering your opinion on 7.1/6.1

I guess I'll do some more listening in the coming months too, which should help my wallet flex that little more :)
 

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