I've heard a few various faux surround systems and they're not even close to the real thing. But people shouldn't be "sitting around the edges" of the room anyway. At least not if you want good sound. More here:

How to set up a room

--Ethan

I have heard such systems and can understand finding them fun. It isn't the same at all as "real" surround, but you may find it does enough of what you want to be enjoyable.

Try it!

that vizio thing is garbage, just like their televisions...as far as that "sound bar" thing goes... not even close to a true surround system. at best it is a poorly executed bit of chicomm electonics trickery. I mean seriously...surround sound from a single point source? right

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that vizio thing is garbage, just like their televisions...as far as that "sound bar" thing goes... not even close to a true surround system. at best it is a poorly executed bit of chicomm electonics trickery. I mean seriously...surround sound from a single point source? right

Well, give me 35 drivers in a horizontal line at the front, all little 2" ones, and a completely rectangular room with the same treatment (non-absorbative) on each wall, and I can give you surround sound, but that's hardly what most people have to deal with.

I don't know anything about the Vizio, but Yamaha and others put out speakers systems that were purported to work as j_j describes.

I only heard them in showrooms so I have no idea how they would sound in an "ideal" room. They did not create surround sound, but they did hint at sound immersion. Amusing.

I have a Yamaha YSP-1000 'soundbar' for AV duties and would pretty much echo the other posts here. It does not create anything approaching 'real' surround sound, particularly in my room (it is only really designed to work in a 'symmetrical' position, e.g. at 45 deg in a corner or mid-wall, in a symmetrical room). However it does do something 'amusing' as Elk states (specifcally, in my room, it makes what is presumably the rear channel sounds appear to be coming from well to the left and right of the screen itself, improving the sense of 'space'), and is more than sufficient for my modest AV needs. However I would never use it for serious music listening, if my life depended on it.

The big win for me was that it helped me to decouple the positioning of my main stereo speakers from that of the TV, which allowed me to square a very tricky room layout circle. The SQ is probably better than the built-in speakers in most TVs but even the most modest single-purpose two-channel music system will do things this couldn't even get close to.

Hope this helps.