Thread: Stereo or Multi-channel?

Posts: 67
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Post by Fugue October 15, 2013 (11 of 67)
GROOT GELUID said:

Why only focus on the imaging? For added resolution and a (much)more faithful sound character 5 channel sound reproduction of well recorded music is by far superior to 2 channel.

That's not my sole focus, but to many audiophiles, it's an important element. If we are trying to create a realistic portrayal of live music, then having the instruments floating amorphously somewhere in the room doesn't quite work.

Post by stvnharr October 15, 2013 (12 of 67)
Fugue said:

Which do you prefer? I started out with just stereo, then when to m-ch, now I'm thinking of returning to stereo. Several companies, especially Channel Classics, use too much direct sound in the rear channels, which really messes up the imaging. For instance with Vivaldi's Op.9 Concertos, the musicians are just hanging somewhere in space with no identifiable position. What are your thoughts? (If there's a previous similar thread, then I apologize.)

From what you've written it seems that perhaps you have a setup issue of some kind, rears at too high a sound level, rears too close to where you sit, rears not a good match with the ML's, or something else.

Post by pgmdir October 15, 2013 (13 of 67)
I don't think either is right or wrong. In my case, I made the decision to upgrade the quality of my playback equipment where I do most of my listening. In order to keep costs at a reasonable level for my present situation I felt I'd rather put the money into quality two channel than stay with MC. The Living room is still MC with pretty good stuff, and that's generally where we watch movies.

A little over a year ago, I was able to sample some world class audio components at the home of the publisher of an online audio magazine. I discovered that top quality two channel was far more involving than pretty good MC. With a proper soundstage and natural phase relationships, I don't miss the rear channels.

Would I go back to MC if I had a lot more to spend? Probably--- Because I'd still have the option to listen either way.

Again--- there is no right or wrong anser to the thread question.

Post by Fugue October 15, 2013 (14 of 67)
stvnharr said:

From what you've written it seems that perhaps you have a setup issue of some kind, rears at too high a sound level, rears too close to where you sit, rears not a good match with the ML's, or something else.

If I turn down the rears so they are not overwhelming on recordings with a lot of direct signal in them, then there's virtually no sound from discs that are more realistically balanced, e.g. mostly hall sound in the rear. I listen only to classical music, so maybe rock/pop/jazz fans don't mind a lot of direct rear sound.

Post by junchoon October 15, 2013 (15 of 67)
FullRangeMan said:

Two. Or how 5.1 fans love to say ''only two''.

Seriously? Check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereophonic_sound

Cheers,
WPS

Post by stvnharr October 15, 2013 (16 of 67)
Fugue said:

If I turn down the rears so they are not overwhelming on recordings with a lot of direct signal in them, then there's virtually no sound from discs that are more realistically balanced, e.g. mostly hall sound in the rear. I listen only to classical music, so maybe rock/pop/jazz fans don't mind a lot of direct rear sound.

What you have described is what you should hear, just hall ambience from the rears.

BTW, there have been a number of threads with the same title as yours thru the years. It's been discussed to death. Many just don't respond to this anymore.

Post by Fugue October 15, 2013 (17 of 67)
stvnharr said:

What you have described is what you should hear, just hall ambience from the rears.

BTW, there have been a number of threads with the same title as yours thru the years. It's been discussed to death. Many just don't respond to this anymore.

Yes, but what I said was if I turn down the rears to the point that the overly direct sound is more ambient in nature, then other recordings that have only ambient material in the rear channels produce no effect at all.

I suspected as much, but there doesn't seem to be a way to search for topics, just recordings.

Post by GROOT GELUID October 15, 2013 (18 of 67)
Fugue said:

That's not my sole focus, but to many audiophiles, it's an important element. If we are trying to create a realistic portrayal of live music, then having the instruments floating amorphously somewhere in the room doesn't quite work.

Well in many real acoustic concert hall situations the localisation of the sounds of individual instruments can be quite like that. If you sit in the floor area in the Concertgebouw for instance, with a piano concerto, horns do sound as if coming from behind. Still sounds better there in real life than on most sound systems.
My experience is not that 5 channel recordings suffer from worse positioning than 2 channel, but that some, maybe considered audiophile, 2 channel recordings emphasize localisation properties, against sound character and timbre.
The really big "unaudiophile" quality of 2 channel reproduction is that all the direct sound and the indirect sound ( that part of the sound that defines the acoustic ) come from the same 2 sources in the front.
It may have been discussed a lot before, but I think there is still a lot of prejudice against 5 channel sound reproduction for music. Often from people who have hardly any serious experience with it.

Post by Fugue October 15, 2013 (19 of 67)
GROOT GELUID said:

Well in many real acoustic concert hall situations the localisation of the sounds of individual instruments can be quite like that. If you sit in the floor area in the Concertgebouw for instance, with a piano concerto, horns do sound as if coming from behind. Still sounds better there in real life than on most sound systems.
My experience is not that 5 channel recordings suffer from worse positioning than 2 channel, but that some, maybe considered audiophile, 2 channel recordings emphasize localisation properties, against sound character and timbre.
The really big "unaudiophile" quality of 2 channel reproduction is that all the direct sound and the indirect sound ( that part of the sound that defines the acoustic ) come from the same 2 sources in the front.
It may have been discussed a lot before, but I think there is still a lot of prejudice against 5 channel sound reproduction for music. Often from people who have hardly any serious experience with it.

I was immediately drawn to the spaciousness and seemingly 3D effect of m-ch for quite a while. It's just a few more recent purchases or discs I haven't listened to in a while with too much direct rear sound that make me question the efficacy of m-ch. I suppose one solution is to listen to the discs with a distracting amount of rear-channel signal in stereo and the discs that "get it right" in m-ch. (It's easy to switch via the remote for my Oppo.) I know my setup has some limitations, as I don't have the space (or an understanding enough wife!!) for 5 matched, equi-distanced speakers, but when m-ch discs have mainly ambient material in the rear channels, it does sound pretty darn good.

Post by andrei_nz October 15, 2013 (20 of 67)
stvnharr said:
BTW, there have been a number of threads with the same title as yours thru the years. It's been discussed to death. Many just don't respond to this anymore.

At the rate that technology is advancing - equipment and DSD for example - it may be a good thing if this is revisited every now and then.

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