I hate cables and clutter - and this was reason enough in the past not to get a 5.x/7.x surround system - too many cables, speakers and clutter. Until I came across the Yamaha YSP-4000:
Yamaha rammed 40 1.5 inch beam-driver speakers that have individual and amps and two 4.25 inch midbass speakes into a 41-inch bar. The YSP-4000 also features HDMI pass-throughs and analog/720p/1080i upscaling to wonderful 1080p.
The speakers are all coordinated by a DSP, and by tweaking delay and volume, convincingly eliciting sweeping surround audio that seems to come from all 360 degrees, and then some. There are "seven Cinema DSP programs (three movie, three music and one sports)" and "Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby Pro Logic II and DTS Neo:6," all of which are selectable via the remote and on screen display or LCD.
The YSP-4000 allows the input of 6 A/V sources and the upscaling into beautiful 1080p. My setup did not require this. I have my PS3 connected via HDMI directly to my Sony Bravia and the sound via optical pushed into the Yamaha. I tried to upscale DSTV to 1080p which was worse than watching it in native resolution (waiting for that HD-PVR), but connecting DSTV via optical produces cinema-like surround sound.
