The extra 2 speakers are for side left and right channels. I've seen some of the very high top end home theater recievers offer the 7.1 output. I don't know if it offers a huge difference in sound or not, but I would imagine eventully it will be the new rave.

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"..The more things change...the more they stay the same..."

Antec SX830 300w
AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.1ghz @ 1.2ghz
Abit KT7-RAID
256MB Crucial PC133 RAM
IBM Deskstar 75GXP 30GB
Samsung 900NF 19"
ATI Radeon 32MB DDR
Plextor 8/2/20 CDRW
Adaptec 2930U SCSI Card
SoundBlaster Live! X-Gamer 5.1
Klipsch Pro Media Speakers
Pioneer 16x Slot DVD
3Com NIC
Windows 98 SE

[This message has been edited by boob (edited February 27, 2001).]