While I've read about the Ventriloquist speakers and found them interesting, I'm in favor of the Onkyo’s larger speaker format. You may have noticed that to help their small satellites' mid-bass performance, the Ventriloquist center speaker's mid-bass drivers operate not only on the center channel speaker signal, but with the front satellite speakers' signals also going to the center speaker.

This is from the VT-12 owner's manual (italic emphasis is my addition, the words are from Hsu):
Quote:
Ventriloquist Operation

When wired as shown and the Ventriloquist switch on the center channel speaker is in the UP position, you will experience the “Ventriloquist” effect. This causes the small front satellites to effectively sound like much larger bookshelf speakers. When the switch is in the DOWN position, the “Ventriloquist” function will be turned off and the front satellites perform as standard 2-1/2˝ speakers. You can safely flip the Ventriloquist switch ON and OFF while the system is playing, demonstrating the sonic advantages over conventional micro satellites.

An optional Ventriloquist rear center channel may be purchased through select dealers or factory direct, and will provide better mid-bass for the rear channels. We recommend such a setup for serious listening.

(reference: http://www.hsuresearch.com/products/vt-12.pdf )
Although I do applaud the innovation, I think that the Hsu felt the need to compete in the small form factor speaker market and is indirectly admitting to small speaker sound output problems by having to come up with the 'ventriloquist' compromise in an attempt to achieve sound partially like larger format speakers. And note that the rear speakers do not even have the ‘ventriloquist’ option unless you buy an extra ‘center channel’ speaker to install in the rear.

I can say that with regard to loudness in my friend's living room, with only about $1K invested, one can operate a rather noisy shop-style vacuum cleaner in the room and almost not know it's running if you turn up the audio system loud enough (full-blend pop music, not classic symphony) - and, no, the audio system is not glaringly distorted at this point. I just don't see how several 2-1/2" drivers are going to do as well as several 5-1/4" and 4" drivers. Mathematically, it would take four 2"-diameter radiating areas to equal one 4"-diameter radiating area. (A 2-1/2" driver does not have a 2-1/2"-diameter moving surface, a 4" driver does not have a 4"-diameter moving surface, etc.) Even with the 'ventriloquist' feature on, a front main speaker is going to share two 2-1/2 drivers, about half the radiating surface of just one of the Onkyo drivers (5-1/4" and 4"), and each front Onkyo box has two of those - four times the radiating surface for mid-bass (Onkyo model HT-S790) in just one of Onkyo’s loudspeaker cabinets up front. As for the surrounds, one Onkyo surround still has about four times the mid-bass radiating surface of one Ventriloquist surround - unless one buys the extra Ventriloquist center channel for the rear, which would mean that one Onkyo surround would still have about twice the mid-bass radiating surface.

After so many words, I’m going to slightly counter myself by saying that the Hsu sub packaged in the Performance 2 system will likely be better than one included in the Onkyo system, although both have 10” drivers.

Sorry if I seem to be pushing hard in one direction, I’m not really pushing – but I think you said that a good amount of sound output was important. And in the end, the Hsu gives you a 30-day trial, so it’s certainly worth trying. In some ways I’d like my thoughts on this to be wrong and find out that micro-satellites really can do as well.