A 4.4 system is four speakers, four subwoofers.

Quad stereo can give a truly headphone like presentation.

Inspired by musicians who have championed quadraphonic sound including Suzanne Ciani and Ralph Reign.

Suzanne Ciani only performs in true quadraphonic sound on her Buchla 200e modular synthesizer.

Rapha, co-designer of the Octopus. also requested a quad stereo system

Quad stereo (meaning stereo front and rear) can give a truly headphone like presentation.

Ralph Reign also actually owns the largest Blumenstein Audio system made to date - (which is the “4.4 Octopus / Infra 15” option in the drop down menu). His 2 pr. Octopus, and 4 pcs 15” Subwoofers is a rugged setup that has been proven by 8 years of portable setups in myriad arrangements, countless outdoor and indoor venues, weddings, amplifying every genre of music including his own, in high fidelity. At one point, part of his system was even attached to a bicycle as part of Mob Roll, an annual rolling bicycle based music festival in the Pacific Northwest.

I don’t really see other speaker companies encouraging Quad stereo / front and rear stereo. It’s either the purist stereo crowd, or the 5.1 crowd. And don’t get me wrong - I’m not bashing 5.1, but personally I watch all movies and watch TV in stereo, so putting stereo rears which simply mirror the stereo fronts sounds a little basic, but it is one way of getting a form of surround sound.

While 4 speakers also covers more listening area than 2 speakers, care and consideration still needs to be put into the speaker positioning for all 4 speakers in order to find the best acoustics.