In film exhibition, 6.1- and 7.1-channel systems make sense. At home, however, 5.1 channels are quite enough. It's easy to generate a solid soundfield in a small space with three speakers in front and two on the rear of the side walls. To me it's self-evidently nonsensical to have four surround speakers outnumbering the three in front.

Your family's attention is riveted on the screen and that's where a home surround system should deliver most of its firepower. Adding more channels gives your surround receiver more work to do. That's never a good thing. Despite the "100 watts per channel" specs you see in spec sheets, the majority of surround receivers measure at more like 35.

So when an action-movie soundtrack swells up, it drives the receiver into clipping. This might sound like a slight deflating of dynamics. Or the sound may get harsher as it gets louder. In the worst-case scenario, the receiver overheats and shuts down. If you don't like what you hear when you turn up the volume, clipping is what you're hearing.

There are two ways to minimize clipping. One is to dump your receiver for separate components-a multi-channel power amp and a surround preamp-processor. This will cost you more money and make your system bulkier and more complex. The alternative is buy speakers with a high sensitivity rating, measured in decibels (dB), say in the low to mid nineties. Unfortunately they're not always the best-sounding ones. (Klipsch is one of the rare exceptions.)