We hosted Thanksgiving this year, and had a house full of inlaws. One particular uncle in law was commenting how good my surround sound was, and was lamenting about how the BB system he had was not working very well. He has had technicians from several vendors come out, and he has spent tons of money, and still does not have good sound for movies. In particular, he noted that he had a hard time making out words in the vocal track.
The system he was listening to in my family room was a Panny digital receiver, with Triad in wall LR, and Triad in-room center. Nothing out of the ordinary. I explained to him that the Panny has a mic, and a built in program that configures everything automatically. He indicated that he does not think his receiver has that. So, at this point, I had his full attention. I then took him to the basement to demo my home theater system using only two speakers. I used Black Hawk down to show how clear the vocals are despite all of the sound effects, and how the sounds affects come from all around the room, despite only have two speakers. I stressed to him how I did not have a center channel, surrounds, or even a subwoofer. He was in awe. I then switched to two channel. I played Diana Krall, Michael Buble, and Bonnie Rait. His jaw literally dropped. Then I couldn't get him out of my basement!
Next I took my BIL down to the basement. He is more of a rocker, and much younger than the uncle in law. We cranked Metalica at high volume. It was hilarious to watch him yell the lyrics while doing the air guitar. He was blown away and had an absolute blast. While my system was designed for vocals and jazz, it does very, very well with rock, including Metal.
This was the most fun I have had with my system in a long time.
