2 channel movie lstening;is it worth the sacrafice

I used to have my stereo and movie surround system all in the same room.
Recently, I moved the surround processor, multi-channel amp, sub-woofer, etc. to another room where the kids watch movies. They love the surround system. Most of their movies take full advantage of the surround system, sub-woofer, etc. In my listening room, I have a two channel system with a
43 inch plasma screen on the wall between my speakers. I play DVD's and
watch digital cable including HDTV on the screen with the sound coming out of my stereo speakers. My system puts the voices right in the center where the screen is located -- even though my speakers are about 8 feet apart. I don't find that I need a center speaker to locate the voices in the screen. I don't watch many of the whiz-bang type movies that would take advantage of the surround system. I found that, after watching a few of
those movies to enjoy the surround, I settled back into watching the types of
movies I usually watch -- and there was very little for the surround speakers or sub-woofer to do during these movies, if anything. If I want to watch a
whiz-bang movie, I can always watch in the other room, but I don't find myself doing that. So, if I had to make a choice, it would be two-channel for
both music and movies. A person on a budget who was more interested in
music than home theatre could concentrate his/her spending on two channels and acquire a far better system than one who has to split his/her spending among five or even seven channels. And yes, a two channel amp and a 5 channel amp at the same price is no contest, the two channel amp will give you much better sound. Same with pre-amp. And the same money spent on two speakers will give you far better sound that the same money spread over five speakers. Finally, all SACD's have a stereo layer, so even when considering High Rez, there is no absolute need for multi-channel. I love listening to SACD's in two-channel.

another vote for 2 channel home theather. yeah, multichannel is much more immersive, but it depends on what your priorities are. It's much more cost effective to do high end 2 channel with video graphed on, than anything else. Plus you get two *great* channels out of it. Forme its good enough.

Some guys do the HT-bypass thing and add a few more channels of mediocre quality, which is cool, but I'd rather spend than money on something else. I find well done 2 channel to be immersive enough (including action movies). To each his own.

Well the proof will be in the listening.....I just sold my B&K avr202, center channel, and rears.............and got a Musical Fidelity Integrated on the way. Thanks for all the input. john e

Depends on the movie. Silent films (0-channel) can be fun.

I used to have a stereo setup integrated with a HT setup, ie just add centre and surrounds and a AVR to drive the centre and surrounds. Later moved on to separate stereo and HT setups. Stereo system being a lot more musical and involving, than the HT.

Until I tried out SACD/DVDA and added a Yamaha AVR. Then the multichannel setup began to have something worth listening for, even in stereo! Of course diff rooms meant that the room treatments were required to get the rooms to sound good in the first place. Then I added some treatment to the HT setup and now it sounds like a serious contender against my stereo setup, just a different perspective.

What I'm trying to say is that a multichannel setup can be used for both HT and stereo, provided that :

a) the room is properly treated
b) things which are added for HT, eg TV, centre spk, sub, etc... are not too intrusive acoustically. I'm using a pull down screen with a carpet in the centre, so that helps.

If you want to watch a movie properly, then a serious multichannel setup IS required. There is no alternative. There are lots of information encoded into DVDs now, if you count the ES/EX, up to 7.1. Forcing that into 2ch stereo setup just doesn't do justice to the movie.

A lot of the problems associated with bad sound from DVDs are really created by owners who have not taken as much care with their multichannel setups, as they have with their stereo setups, so any comparison would obviously favor the stereo setup. Eg having the same brand and range of spks across all channels, as well as the amps, and not forgetting room treatments, and cabling, etc...

So IMHO, watching movies in stereo is just scratching the surface. The only exception I can think of is if you are using top flight spks which can throw holographic images and they must be full range to 20hz, else you're just kidding yourself. Watching the movie in the cinema would be more satisfying.