If you have the power, vaulted ceiling do give you a great sense of openess and space that is not attainable in a box, otherwise they suck the wind right out of your sails. I have a friend with a Denon 80w 6.1 receiver with vaulted ceilings and he has to turn it up to 00 to attain close to the effect that I can produce at -20, love that 7100. I guess I got lucky because I have fairly good seperation and the bass does not get a severe overlap or boominess. My home has a fair amount of open space, so it does tend to be acoustically forgiving