Oh man where to start. Yesterday my brother calls me and wants me to look at some of what were in essence blu ray players with 5 speakers and 1 passive subwoofer type systems. They thought these would be good. Anyway this was all because his wife doesn't want to see the wires hanging in their house they just bought. The previous owners had put together quite a nice setup and had taken it with them leaving only the 16 gauge speaker wire hanging on the wall. Anyway I tried to get them to at least get a cheap receiver and some cheap speakers that I knew would sound a heck of a lot better than what they wanted to buy. Long story short his wife bought the junk thing she thought was a deal on black friday. Here is the kicker to all of this. I go over there to set it up for them. After I get it done she says "where are the speakers that go on these wires?" They had bought a 5.1 system and the owners before them had a 7.1 system. The argument became, I mostly just listen to music here while I work in the kitchen so just put the front left and right speakers where the surrounds are supposed to be. WHHAAAA??? I almost just couldn't do it. So many things were going through my head at that time. Namely, Holy crap you could have just got a cheap stereo receiver and some nicer tower speakers and would have had a much better system than this mess. I didn't even bother trying to explain all the many reasons what she wanted was so messed up. I just fixed it how she wanted it and left it at that.

I am just totally amazed at home much people just don't know. By the way my brother is a band director at a high school and does an excellent job. How he doesn't understand this stuff is beyond me. Anyway, just had to vent a bit. All horror stories are welcomed

It does make you wonder why they bothered to buy a HTiB Blu Ray at all.

I went over to a friends house to help him set up his new Pioneer receiver and he had his side surrounds beside his mains. I corrected this faux pas and set up the system correctly and now he and his family are truly getting 5 channel surround sound. They were amazed at how much better the sytem sounded.

I can't tell you the number of times I've seen softball-sized surrounds sitting on top of the mains.

Yeah, my neighbours have one of dem high powered HT-in-a Box. It looks real nice and tidy with all the speakers lined up under the TV like that. When I told them how the speakers (surrounds) don't work like that, she went on to tell me how her rich cousin had a professionally built home theatre in their basement...as she says "with all ceramic floors and marble walls".

What, what, at... at..., I can't hear you, ou, uo, uoououooo.....

WOW, that's classic! I bet they have one of those wonderful hose systems for that ceramic floor and marble room they built.