Wanna take it to the next level? Buy MORE speakers!

A cheap way to add fun to your hi-fi is to get one of the inexpensive surround sound boxes containing the Dynaquad system. David Hafler was a big fan, and offered a couple of different Dynaco boxes to create a rear channel signal. All the circuit does is create a left minus right signal and send it to a pair of rear channel speakers. If a recording was made in a large hall/cathedral/etc, the left/right stereo recording can contain out-of-phase (left minus right) information, consisting largely of hall ambiance.

Even with "mere" 2-channel recordings, a Hafler-derived rear soundfield can be quite enveloping. You hear the stage, instruments, and singers in front of you, and the sound of the venue all around you. It’s just for fun, no need to get all purist about it.

@deep_333  To me the phrase "awful multichannel setup" is redundant. Yes, I suppose a music surround system can be initially impressive, especially to the novice listener, but does anyone really want to be subjected to musical inaccuracy in the long term? Some people think door-rattling one-note bass in their cars is impressive but you may notice the windows are usually down because the drivers are suffering from listening fatigue. To each his own, what is great to some is "awful" to others and discern no fun in it at all. Let's be better than victims of more-is-better salesmanship.

Given the same budget for speakers, 2 speakers will sound better than multiple speakers. 

There is no free lunch.

If one has a budget, let's say, $10K for speakers, and they spend on 4+ speakers instead of 2, the quality and engineering on every aspect of the speakers will be most likely be diminished. 

Cheap crossover parts, inferior cabinet material and bracing, inferior drivers, less time and effort on R&D, etc, all add up to inferior sounding speakers. Adding more of the same quality does not make it sound better. More impressive maybe, but not qualitatively better. 

If you ever want to test this, pick up a pair of cheap used speakers, open them up and add some bracing, some Black Hole 5, swap out the cheap crossover parts (iron core coils, sand cast resistors, electrolytic caps) with better quality of the same values. And revel the improved sound quality. 

Most mainstream manufacturers don't put any money into these things, because they do not show from the outside, so consumers don't see them. 

Even some people that should know better, are often taken in by great looking enclosures and marketing. Just look at all the great press those crappy new SVS speakers are getting. 

Even some people that should know better, are often taken in by great looking enclosures and marketing. Just look at all the great press those crappy new SVS speakers are getting.

I heard them at the Home Entertainment Show and they really sound "dead" and I couldn’t live with them. The crew there agreed that that treble wasn’t their strong point, and based on their heritage, they are more bass oriented.

Even the Stereophile Magazine test shows them to be dead though, IIRC, the review doesn’t reflect this.

I don’t care how many you stuff into a room, you won’t cure that problem without eq and I would rather have a single pair of speakers that I enjoy listening too. BTW, I don’t think I have ever heard speakers that can image as mine do in my room.

I have a quality HT set-up and prefer to listen to music in "Pure Direct" stereo with no eq or room correction that can spoil the stereo image.  And, I have an Oppo 95 and even on mult-channel SACDs and DVD-Audio disks, I almost always select the stereo track.