Heresy? Insanity? Discovery?

[RBFC]

I took the time to play around with the settings in my A/V processor the other day. I have several thousand CDs and lots of music files on my server (all in stereo or mono) and tried playing some of the ones I know well using surround sound processing modes, mostly Dolby ProLogic IIX Music.

The following are my impressions:

Cons:

1. The processing obviously adds a bit of artificial "glassiness" to the sound (must lie in upper midrange/lower treble). This effect may be system dependent, etc.

2. Setting the channel balances correctly is almost a "by the album or track" procedure, because each recording offers up a different amount of the out-of-phase information, etc that is used to create rear channel signals. So, some recordings can use up to 3-4 dB more surround volume than others to achieve the same level of effect. For the record, I'm not a fan of sitting "on stage" with instruments popping up all around me.

Pros:

1. For several of the recordings, after setting the surround level to a reasonable amount, there is a quality added to the presentation that absolutely provides a missing portion of the "reality" illusion. While I'm sure this effect (and its degree of absence) are very system dependent, there was definitely a sense of dimensionality that simply cannot be fully reproduced by stereo (of the many systems I've heard personally).

2. Having more speakers playing, it seemed as though the dynamics of the event (and their bloom into the recorded space), were more accurately portrayed. On bigger systems than mine, it's quite possible that this impression may be reduced or eliminated.


Overall, the effect is varied and the recording has a great impact on the enjoyment factor. Michael Stearns' The Lost World was fantastic through the surround presentation, while other albums were less so.

I'd be interested to hear the thoughts and experiences of others here! I know I'm fiddling with one of the most sacred audiophile dogmas......

Lee

 

[mep]

A friend of mine has his HT system optimized to playback multi-channel SACDs and Blue Ray concert DVDs. I listened to about a half dozen different multi-channel SACDs before I cried "Uncle." It sort of sounds ok at first, but then it devolves (or evolves) into sounding gimmicky and unnatural after your ears get past the initial immersion into surround sound. Now mind you this system isn't SOTA by any means, but it's still a damn decent system. Deep Purple Machine Head sounded the best of the discs he brought out, but it still sounded way gimmicky and reminded me of the old quad days.

 

[RBFC]

Too much surround sets me running instantly too! Surround "effects" are for movies, but the sense of "hall space" and other plausible illusions were enhanced when the surround setting was carefully judged.

Lee

 

[amirm]

That's a good observation and test Lee. I still remember the first time I turned on Lexicon Logic 7 in my system creating a surround experience out of stereo material. I think I sat there for a day, relistening to my library. It certainly creates a lot ambiance which is missing in stereo material. The issue I had is that after a while, I grew tired of it. I did not try to tune it for each song. Perhaps that would have kept it usable.

 

[RBFC]

That's a good observation and test Lee. I still remember the first time I turned on Lexicon Logic 7 in my system creating a surround experience out of stereo material. I think I sat there for a day, relistening to my library. It certainly creates a lot ambiance which is missing in stereo material. The issue I had is that after a while, I grew tired of it. I did not try to tune it for each song. Perhaps that would have kept it usable.

If the effect was set properly, and the audible changes to the processed sound were not quite so noticeable, I could listen without fatigue ( supposition, since the experiment was of very limited duration) . I agree, however, that hearing one selection with an overblown surround effect leaves a bad taste in one's mouth and no desire to continue.

Lee

 

[cjfrbw]

If you "demand" to hear discrete sounds from the surrounds, then they are probably set up too loud.

Unless you are specifically listening to the multi channel ping pong recordings or home theater, which I grow tired of rather quickly as well, not too many well done ones.

If the surounds are set up properly, then if you turn them off, you just hear a collapse of the soundstage toward the front speakers, but no discrete sound per se, and you should rapidly lose consciousness that the surrounds are on at all, they should just be part and parcel of the whole cloth of the performance.

It shouldn't be as fussy as described, or needing adjustment with every song. Push button remote allows level adjustment, but once set up are largely stable. The only time I adjust my settings is if I go from pop/rock/jazz to classical, in which case I like to use the European hall settings.

Dolby PLII Music is great for vocals with a center channel and digital sources, even without discrete multi channel information. It does get goosy with some phase ridden recordings, but not that many.

Persistence is the key as well, not just setting up an obvious multi trick pony, but once you make surround an integral part of the listening venue, the shortcomings of two channel are hard to return to without a sense of loss.

 

[JackD201]

Funny that Amir should mention Logic 7. It's the best sound I get in my cars. Stereo to Surround in the home however, as Lee says, becomes an album by album or even a song by song affair. I quickly tired of it and abandoned it. I haven't had a mixed use system for a few years now. My last one was built around an AVP2. Sonically, the system and room was way too compromised to shine at either task in order to be only competent at both. Besides, the kids had grown, the wife had decided to give up her corporate career to devote more time to them and all that meant Dad had to move his music listening out since the only available time slots would be around the time the infomercials came on. LOL.

That was a long time ago and perhaps processing has improved leaps and bounds by now or perhaps not. I just don't see myself spending time earmarked for rest and meditation to more tweaking and fussing. Maybe the time will come when the processing will include track analysis and auto calibration that works consistently. Maybe, I'd give that a whirl but not as an early adopter. That's just me though. While setting up systems is fun, I do enough of it for it to be considered work.

 

[RBFC]

Jack,

Your system may well be one of those I mentioned for which surround doesn't offer as much "interest"!

Lee

 

[treitz3]

For the record, I'm not a fan of sitting "on stage" with instruments popping up all around me.

Hello, Lee. Isn't it fun to just sit back and try new things?

Your quote above is my main distraction when it comes to surround playback. It's something I took an instant dislike too and when I do go back to try out different multi-channel setups, it's the one thing that makes me want to leave the room. With that said, when I do return to a stereo system...

...the shortcomings of two channel are hard to return to without a sense of loss.

*sigh* I like what multi-channel has to offer for some of the pro's but that one con on a well calibrated system is what I personally can't tolerate. On the flip side, I don't have to tolerate anything with 2-channel. It sure is fun to keep trying though. Perhaps, one day...

Tom

P.S. - IIRC, I think the best MC recording I have heard was some sort of Phil Collins Live DVD a couple of years back. Most all of the instruments were still in front of you but for some reason, the background singers had a good presence around and behind you. Still, I believe this was the best MC recording I have heard to date.

 

[microstrip]

That's a good observation and test Lee. I still remember the first time I turned on Lexicon Logic 7 in my system creating a surround experience out of stereo material. I think I sat there for a day, relistening to my library. It certainly creates a lot ambiance which is missing in stereo material. The issue I had is that after a while, I grew tired of it. I did not try to tune it for each song. Perhaps that would have kept it usable.

Amir,

I will quote F. Toole from Sound Reproduction:

Fortunately, it turns out that when given the opportunity to judge without bias, human listeners are excellent detectors of artifacts and distortions; they are remarkably trustworthy guardians of what is good. Having only a vague concept of what might be correct, listeners recognize what is wrong.

Perhaps this ultra processed ambiance added to stereo recordings is simply wrong, no matter what you did ...

 

[amirm]

Amir,

I will quote F. Toole from Sound Reproduction:

Fortunately, it turns out that when given the opportunity to judge without bias, human listeners are excellent detectors of artifacts and distortions; they are remarkably trustworthy guardians of what is good. Having only a vague concept of what might be correct, listeners recognize what is wrong.

Perhaps this ultra processed ambiance added to stereo recordings is simply wrong, no matter what you did ...

I hear you . Clearly simple derivation of surround misfires at times and generates artificial sounding stuff. The more sophisticated version, Lexicon QLS, was much more like what we may want. It isolates different "channels" and then lets you route just them. So for example if you just want the low-level ambiance, you could pick that to go to surround and none of the voices and instruments. Likewise vocals can be simply directed to center channel. It probably misfires sometimes just the same but clearly is a huge step forward from what we have now.

I am holing my breath that Harman releases QLS in some form soon .

 

[mep]

I think the key words that I read here several times from several people is that surround sound becomes tiring.

 

[treitz3]

Well, it can't be too tiring. 30% of the forum currently would prefer a MC system for the playback of a live performance. That's a pretty significant number.

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...-draw-your-swords!-Multi-channel-or-2-channel

Tom

 

[mep]

Well, it can't be too tiring. 30% of the forum currently would prefer a MC system for the playback of a live performance. That's a pretty significant number.

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...-draw-your-swords!-Multi-channel-or-2-channel

Tom

Yeah, but does 30% of the forum really listen in multi-channel or does 30% of the forum *think* they would prefer multi-channel?

 

[treitz3]

Good question. One I can not answer either.

Tom

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Well, it can't be too tiring. 30% of the forum currently would prefer a MC system for the playback of a live performance. That's a pretty significant number.

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...-draw-your-swords!-Multi-channel-or-2-channel

Tom

There is a complication here in that some are referring to multichannel but really are talking about surround as derived from stereo sources and some (like me) focus on discrete multichannel. Too many variables, imho, to lump all the data.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Stereo to Surround in the home however, as Lee says, becomes an album by album or even a song by song affair. I quickly tired of it and abandoned it. I haven't had a mixed use system for a few years now.

i'm with Jack on this. i got bored with true hi-rez multi-channel in my 2-channel system while acknowledging that it can do some things. it was too tricky, and was more distracting than involving. and the music i love is almost never multichannel.

i have a full blown HT 7.1 suround system in my separate HT room and almost never even think about playing multi-channel music there. it simply has little apeal for me.

as far as processed surround sound from a CD i'm not knocking it; i know it has the potential to do some interesting things. but i have no interest.

i'd rather play a 45rpm Lp pressing where the soundstage out-multi-channel's multi-channel and it is a natural involving thing. listen to 'Whole Lotta Love' in the Classic 45rpm vinyl. be amazed. that is true surround sound.

 

[microstrip]

Well, it can't be too tiring. 30% of the forum currently would prefer a MC system for the playback of a live performance. That's a pretty significant number.

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...-draw-your-swords!-Multi-channel-or-2-channel

Tom

Tom ,

The question was not to what do you prefer to listen to music, but what you find that gets "the most realistic reproduction of a performance" .
This can be a quite a difference, as a system can be considered more realistic, but at the same time tiring.

 

[RBFC]

Perhaps the cost of the processing is the addition of a fatiguing distortion that is either a disruption of the native frequency response or phase information??? I mentioned this "experiment" to stimulate discussion about what multi-channel could offer, and what current implementations just can't get quite right. I find the premise interesting, but immature. As to discrete multichannel music, there is simply not enough content to matter (except for classical) and much of the content has been messed up in order to show off the ping-pong aspects of surround.

Lee

 

[cjfrbw]

I think the key words that I read here several times from several people is that surround sound becomes tiring.

Yeah, after 43 years of using it, I am just so tired of it, I don't know why I keep using it.

I think it is partially a question of psychological imprinting. It takes effort to get out of a paradigm. Box speaker imprinting, two channel imprinting etc. etc. plus the snobbishness of audiophiles towards home theater sound.

Also, no matter what a lot of audiophiles may say about absolute sound, incredible amounts of effort go into making sound even more unnatural: unnaturally detailed, etched, compressed, huge imaging, enhanced leading edges at the expense of tone, strange dynamics etc. Riding around in the cleavage of the 50 foot woman is kind of fun, but I can't say that I have ever had that experience at a live performance. Most live sound is like a fog bank of ululations with occasional and unpredictable specificity. Most audiophile sound is geared toward enhancing the tiniest leading edge of the primary sound and spatialization, something that is only sometimes heard in any kind of live context in isolation.

Yes, two channel sound is better at isolating the "stage" sound in greater perceived detail and perhaps blowing it up. Maybe too much microscope and not enough wide field overview?

We did, apparently, spend a lot of our human development in caves and closed spaces larger than the typical audiophile listening room, and one presumes that voice and music are most compelling with the quantitative participation of environment.