nick8858 said:
Most home cinemas are in the lounge, (They have to blend in with the rest of the lounge)
This bit I agree with. My parlour system doesn't stop the normal functioning of the room, and for that matter my kitchen and bedroom systems still allow those rooms their normal purposes. Not many people have a dedicated home cinema room such as bigboss has (I've seen it, and it's great!).
nick8858 said:
therefore there are very few cases where a 7.1.4 system is possible, thus an 11 channel receiver is overkill.
Totally agree few have either the space or pocket to do this and visually it will look awful. Completely ridiculous idea aimed at a microscopic section of the public
I don't agree with this bit. In my parlour, which measures only 18'2" by 14'3", it's not huge, the only speakers that people generally notice are the front left and right pair and the surround left and right pair, (because they are about a metre tall and a foot square in cross-section) and the SVS PC13-Ultra subwoofer, because it's four feet tall. All the other speakers in the essentially 11.1 system are less than a foot high, and people don't notice them unless I point them out to my visitors. On my kitchen the same applies, only front and surround left and right speakers are generally noticed. Visually, it does
not look awful. People may choose not to have eight or more speakers in a domestic system but that doesn't mean that it can't be tastefully done.