Back at the start of HT.... when Fosgate released his first Dolby Surround processor... the surround was a single channel, 15W to 25W was deemed ample, and one or two repurposed car speakers was deemed adequate!!
Then we went from the sublime to the ridiculous!!
A 4.0 setup with a good pair of front speakers, and a compact bookshelf or satellite pair at the rear, is quite capable of providing excellent HT performance... with the right choice of gear and setup, 95% of the available performance is there with this simplest HT setup.
The rear does not need to have deep bass or high highs... if it covers the 150Hz to 10kHz range then you have captured 99% of what should be in the surround channels.
Where most people wanted a model T ford, capable of taking the family for a drive down the road, the HT fraternity went down the path of trying to supply the average punter with a mid engined supercar.... yeah that was never going to fly! (and it never did!)
Today we have soundbars using direct/reflected sound to provide an adequate impression of surround and height, these can be further improved with compact satellite surrounds... and for minimal outlay, the average buyer can have a home theatre experience.
Yeah I've added height speakers to my setup.... for most material we stream, or play from our NAS (ripped all our DVD's and BD's long ago) - there is little or no difference with the addition of height... the occasional Atmos track from Netflix has something happening there....
I'm running 5.1.4, but there is very little improvement over my previous (2008) 4.0 setup.
And soundbars have improved out of sight from where they were 10 years ago.... I organised a soundbar for my 87yo mother.... it improved sound from her TV substantially, and more was not needed.
HT is and was a niche, going all the way back to its birth .... Briefly (and erroneously) a bunch of companies tried to mainstream it.... but I think we are heading back to a relatively normal status.
