In my old house, I had a full 8.1 set-up with a Yamaha RX-V3300 (rated at 130wpc, but it doesn’t sound like that much) controlling everything. I had some older stereo components laying around not being used, so one day I got the itch to try and integrate them into the system. I ran the pre-outs from the receiver over to the Yamaha power amp (M85 - which has 2 separate mono-blocks and power supplies, one for each channel, 270wpc) which in turn powered another pair of identical speakers up front (same manufacturer, same model, etc.), so I had one pair being powered by the receiver and one pair being powered by the M85. The sound quality improved noticeably. I know it wasn’t just a perceived thing as everyone (not one exception) that heard it commented on how good it sounded. So, following the typical male logic of “if one is good, two is better…..” proceeded to buy more M85’s and more identical speakers to match their respective brothers in each channel. So by the time I was done, I had two full systems all being controlled by the one receiver. One system being powered by the receiver, the other system being powered by 4 M85s. The sound was amazing in that now horrendously over crowded small living room. I had two people tell me that they’ve never heard anything better, ever. (Although they’re not audiophiles, it’s still nice to hear.)
Then I sold my house and I now have everything packed away, waiting while I finish my new dedicated home theater room. It will be approx 15 x 45. In the mean time I’ve discovered some articles and discussions about comb filtering, which has me confused, and has led me to starting this thread. There seems to be three sides to this issue. One side says absolutely under no circumstances should you use two speakers per channel. Another side says that in real world applications comb filtering, if not impossible, is next to impossible to hear. And the third side says that it’s strictly luck of the draw – that there’s just too many variables to predict if your system will be compromised or not – you just have to set up your system and find out for yourself to see how the variables all come into play.
Well, with a substantial amount of money already invested, I’m going to be biased towards the “impossible to hear” side. Although with what I’ve read, I can certainly see where the “impossible to predict” side would have a legitimate argument. I have a strong tendency to shy away from the “absolutely don’t use multiple speakers” side because their argument seems to be based mostly on pure sine waves, which I don’t listen to except during calibrations.
This is where you come in. Is the big change in room size and layout going to act as a detriment ? I’m wondering if you think it’s going to be worth the extra expense and the extra time of basically setting up two separate audio systems in my new home theater. Which side do you adhere to, and why ?