I had until about 2 years ago, a very nice 5.1.2 system in my living room. That consisted of KEF R500 mains, R200c center, R100 bookshelf speakers as surrounds, and R50 Atmos-enabled toppers on the R500's. The sub was a solo SVS SB2000. It was nice, and the low ceiling did afford the best performance of the R50's due to the angles. None of it, short of moving a chair to the center at the end of the coffee table really sounded great due to the seating arrangement (which I do not wish to change.) Moreover, the system was easily annoying our good rent-paying tenant below.
It was all rarely used it as I'm not a movie-watcher the way my wife is. I would (and still do) enjoy an occasional music concert or similar program, so I wanted something for those times without the floorstanders and the surrounds that were just too high. (And no good lower place for them.) My wife really wouldn't use it, despite watching movies almost every night. She hated surround and subwoofers. So I sold it all off.
For me, the surround sound was missed a little, I needed something. I had got a pair of the KEF T101 speakers for surrounds and just had to drop the wires further down in the walls to get them hidden. I had slack from going to RCA wall plugs for the R100's, so that was easy. More recently, I had done the folks at KEF a huge favor and they wanted to help me out, so I accepted their gift of a pair of the larger T301's for use as main left and right. I had my local dealer order me a T301C for the center. This past Sunday my son came over and helped me get the wires into the walls, and it was NOT and easy task. On the right side, there's a stairwell behind that wall and the risers at right behind the drywall. Had to use his router to carve a groove in it, then I had to patch & paint.
All dialed in, sounds good. I now actually have a 5.2 system because there's one KEF Kube 10b sub up front and another one behind the single chair in the rear corner. Of course it doesn't have the dynamics nor sound quality of KEF R series, but it's more than adequate for my needs. My 2.1 channel music room is where I spend most of my time.
