For small rooms I would take a quality 2.0 audio setup over a cheap surround system any day. A competent integrated amp such as the Virtue ONE can produce a more enjoyable experience, especially with music, from a pair of good bookshelf speakers or slim towers than a swarm of cheap cube speakers powered by a mediocre receiver. I admit it can make integrating multiple sources more difficult, possibly requiring a passive pre-amp or other switch if the tv isn't capable of being the AV hub, but in terms of pure performance good 2.0 is better than mediocre 5.1 any day IMO.
“An engineer explained to us that hundreds of ear impressions were gathered in the name of research, and while each one obviously boasted its own unique shape and size, one single characteristic remained uniform across the board: the entrance into the ear canal is not a perfect circle, it's an oval.”
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For small rooms I would take a quality 2.0 audio setup over a cheap surround system any day. A competent integrated amp such as the Virtue ONE can produce a more enjoyable experience, especially with music, from a pair of good bookshelf speakers or slim towers than a swarm of cheap cube speakers powered by a mediocre receiver. I admit it can make integrating multiple sources more difficult, possibly requiring a passive pre-amp or other switch if the tv isn't capable of being the AV hub, but in terms of pure performance good 2.0 is better than mediocre 5.1 any day IMO.