The smoothness you hear is the result of the extra speakers - effectively as an effect through some part of the room, each "move" is a smaller increment so the change of speaker location is not as pronounced.
Very often those speakers are not used for panning effects but to provide extra ambience - you are inside a sub - you don't really notice it but it colors your impression. Just as a subwoofer does when its not thumping away doing dinosaurs and bombs.
Very often those speakers are not used for panning effects but to provide extra ambience - you are inside a sub - you don't really notice it but it colors your impression. Just as a subwoofer does when its not thumping away doing dinosaurs and bombs.