Nick,

Quote
"...you can often actually forget about how many speakers there are or where they are..."
=
"utilizes wavefront reproduction algorithm so that sound from the 3 speakers works in unison to create a virtual spherical wavefront eminating from a virtual point anywhere between the LR speakers."

And Trifield is recursive, meaning you could go from 2 to 3 to 5 to 9 front speakers (also, 4,6,7,8, but then they would not be equally spaced across the front).

Quote
"loses the punch and clarity on bass"
=
"....energy preservation....the total energy distribution between 2 and 3 speaker is always the same"

At least I think that if you spread a given bass peak over 3 speakers, not two, you will dilute the effect over a wider area. Whilst this may be good for some freq's, I think it loses the impact on instruments that by their nature probably should be tighter (e.g. bass kick drum)

Energy preservation means when you measure the sound energy output at the listening position, there would be no difference whether between 2 and 3 speaker setup.

In stereo setup, you are spreading the bass over 2 speakers, so there is not much difference between that and Trifield. It might be due to your center speaker lacking in low freq.

If you think bass coming from one speaker should be better, then switch your processor to DPL or mono mode, where the sound near the middle of the soundstage comes exclusively from the center speaker. You could then determine if that bass sounds better.