I've read a couple of reviews of receivers that have the capability of using presence speakers. In both reviews the reviewer went on for a paragraph about how the WAF is so low for adding these presence speakers that they didn't even bother to review this feature. In the space that the paragraph takes up they could have just reviewed the feature. I too am interested in how this would sound. Is it worth all this extra effort? Although, from what I understand this feature is for music. I would be interested in using it for home theater.
I remember reading an article on how amazing an 11.2 system sounded. The .2 was discrete left and right subs and presence speakers were added to the front of a normal 7 channel setup. There may have been an additional set of side front speakers to get up to 11 channels. I think either Dolby or THX made a few recordings so that people could see the difference over a 5.1 or 7.1 recording. I guess there was a big difference going from 5.1 to 11.2, but not quite as big as the step from 2 channel to 5.1. So, presence speakers should make a difference. Although they will probably never become mainstream since the general public wants speakers to take up less room and not more. Look at how popular sound bars and cube speakers are, for example.
- Nick
