I live in the Cleveland area. I use strictly 2 channels for music listening. When I go to a concert I feel that that is the way I hear the sound. The orchestra or band is in front of me. The sounds from the side and rear are echoes, and people coughing. I don't feel I'm missing anything in 2 channels.
I have a cool setup on my home theater system, though. I wasn't going to get a surround system originally. I have a wonderful Sansui G8000 receiver I use on that system. 120W per channel, separate power supplies for each channel all the way back to separate windings on the transformer for each channel. On this system I also have a Luxman PD-375 TT, a Sony DTC1000ES DAT, a TEAC 6010GSL, an Onkyo Integra DX708 CD player, and a Denon DRM-710 cassette deck. Mostly I use this system for listening to music. Last summer at a garage sale I found a Sony ES surround amp. This is a really nice unit that has an amp for the surround and center channels and line level outputs for the fronts with steering logic for all 5 channels. It has stereo rear channels, not mono like on most Mid-Fi junk. The Sansui has a 4 channel adapter bus on it, so I have the surround connected there. Now, when I watch a movie or Star Trek Enterprise, I push the 4 channel adapter switch and turn on the surround decoder. I have very convincing 4 channel surround (I don't bother with the center channel) for movies, and I switch it out for listening to music.
Warren
I have a cool setup on my home theater system, though. I wasn't going to get a surround system originally. I have a wonderful Sansui G8000 receiver I use on that system. 120W per channel, separate power supplies for each channel all the way back to separate windings on the transformer for each channel. On this system I also have a Luxman PD-375 TT, a Sony DTC1000ES DAT, a TEAC 6010GSL, an Onkyo Integra DX708 CD player, and a Denon DRM-710 cassette deck. Mostly I use this system for listening to music. Last summer at a garage sale I found a Sony ES surround amp. This is a really nice unit that has an amp for the surround and center channels and line level outputs for the fronts with steering logic for all 5 channels. It has stereo rear channels, not mono like on most Mid-Fi junk. The Sansui has a 4 channel adapter bus on it, so I have the surround connected there. Now, when I watch a movie or Star Trek Enterprise, I push the 4 channel adapter switch and turn on the surround decoder. I have very convincing 4 channel surround (I don't bother with the center channel) for movies, and I switch it out for listening to music.
Warren