Are there any 7 or 9 channel receivers where....

[Benedict_Arnold]

One can turn off the side surround channels and still maintain rear surrounds and ideally Atmos "point two or point four" capabilities as well?

I suppose one could buy a 9 or 11 channel receiver and just not hook up the sides, but would that leave huge holes in the sound bubble?

Asking because our living room really won't suit built-in side surrounds at all and the Memsahib almost certainly won't accept speakers hung on the walls or worse on stands by the couch.

 

[spiny norman]

Don't most AV receivers let you run in 'missing' or 'phantom' speaker mode, in which the electronics shuffle the sound around to fill in the gaps left by non-existent speakers?

Usually you just set the unspeakered channels to 'none' and leave the digital bits to cover their tracks: a look at the online manuals for the receivers you're considering should confirm whether this is possble.

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

Don't most AV receivers let you run in 'missing' or 'phantom' speaker mode, in which the electronics shuffle the sound around to fill in the gaps left by non-existent speakers?

Usually you just set the unspeakered channels to 'none' and leave the digital bits to cover their tracks: a look at the online manuals for the receivers you're considering should confirm whether this is possble.

I looked at a couple of, the Marantz and Onkyo manuals on line and it says if you set the sides to "off" or "none" it switches the rears and heights off by default.

And although I know the manuals usually don't tell the whole story, I don't want to make an expensive mistake...

 

[bigboss]

At least with the Marantz, you can select the exact speakers you want employing. Why don't you try with yours?

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

Cos whichever receiver I get is going in a different room and I don't want to mess up my existing settings or connections.

Thanks for confirmation though