Surround Sound for Stereo Music…Sacrilege??

[Jon AA]

It depends upon the source material as well. A lot of pop music dual-mono's pretty much everything to the center anyway, it may not sound terrible there. OTOH, for a classical recording with an orchestra or choir etc, evenly spread out across the front soundstage, when DSU collapses a large portion of that do the center it really ruins it IMHO.

 

[KenM10759]

Refresh my failing memory, what is "DSU"?

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Refresh my failing memory, what is "DSU"?

Dolby Surround. Basically successor to pro logic2(x and Z)

 

[Jon AA]

Pro Logic II had a music mode and was adjustable. I liked it. Too bad it's gone.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Pro Logic II had a music mode and was adjustable. I liked it. Too bad it's gone.

I agree. Mostly... I really enjoyed the flexibility of pliix music. Ime though, it did some of the same things dtsNX does. Random bongo on the right surround, or a guitar in the left surround etc... the worst part was it would totally rip you out of your listening. As a musician, this was frustrating knowing what a room full of people playing instruments sounds like. Still, when it was good, it was really good.

 

[lovinthehd]

I agree. Mostly... I really enjoyed the flexibility of pliix music. Ime though, it did some of the same things dtsNX does. Random bongo on the right surround, or a guitar in the left surround etc... the worst part was it would totally rip you out of your listening. As a musician, this was frustrating knowing what a room full of people playing instruments sounds like. Still, when it was good, it was really good.

It doesn't really place instruments, tho. Maybe an instrument playing in a certain frequency range....and aren't the surround channels created by the matrix in mono anyways?

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

It doesn't really place instruments, tho. Maybe an instrument playing in a certain frequency range....and aren't the surround channels created by the matrix in mono anyways?

Right, it doesn’t “place” the instruments. That’s why it’s like wtf? Why is that there?

Iirc pro logic(1) was a mono matrix system. Pl2 was much more sophisticated and basically created a stereo sound field. It’s been a looooong time, but I read a deep dive about it. I’ll try and dig it up...

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Hey Chris. In case you need something to do, lol here is the deep dive I was talking about. It’s really good, and imo comprehensive.
https://hometheaterhifi.com/volume_8_1/dolby-prologic2-3-2001.html

 

[lovinthehd]

Hey Chris. In case you need something to do, lol here is the deep dive I was talking about. It’s really good, and imo comprehensive.
https://hometheaterhifi.com/volume_8_1/dolby-prologic2-3-2001.html

Seems what I've read before for the most part. Maybe I missed it but still don't see how it creates a particular sound in just one surround...but I'll read again later too.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Seems what I've read before for the most part. Maybe I missed it but still don't see how it creates a particular sound in just one surround...but I'll read again later too.

Without a reread I probably can’t say either. I just know I always found it irritating.

 

[lovinthehd]

Without a reread I probably can’t say either. I just know I always found it irritating.

LOL next time I matrix something I'll be on the listen for it. Can't remember having that effect except on multich recordings....but maybe I just wasn't paying attention.

 

[sterling shoote]

Multi-channel and 5.1 SACDs, while called surround sound, are mixed differently than movie surround sound tracks. The music mix creates a sound stage that you're closer to and/or is deeper. For example the acoustic guitar might be appear to be right in front and to the immediate left of your seated position and the bass violen may be just to the right and in front of drum set at rear. To the right and in front of those instruments could be a piano played by a singer who seems to be in front of you at your immediate right. In other words, you're not going hear any instruments or singers sounding as if they were behind you. What you get is breadth and depth.

 

[CrispyWisp42]

Oh you guys would kill me if you found out how I have my surround sound set up..... I have a kenwood KR-795, so it has the old dolby pro logic, and I have it set up so I am sitting on a couch on one wall, the two tall speakers are on the other wall with the reciever, but I have the center speaker on a small shelf directly above me (not behind, but literally above me) acting as the "rear". then I have the left rear speaker smack in the middle of the wall on the left, and then the room kind of has a cut out section off to the right, and the right rear speaker is set up in the middle of that wall. If I gave a room map it would look like this:
____fl_______fr______ (fr=front right, fl=front left, c=center, rr=rear right, rl=rear left)
|.............................rr|
| rl.......................___|
|_______c_______|

Now in my defense I am a 16 year old kid, and had no idea what I was doing when I set this up, so I've learned a lot since then. Although I don't really think I can change it because I have no where to put the center speaker in front of me, and the way the room is set up if I put the rear left speaker in the rear left corner it would get hit by the door. I guess I could reverse the whole set up of the room, but that wouldn't really work. Oh and the best part is I almost never watch movies in here, so I've been listening to almost exclusively vinyl records and cassette tapes, and sometimes music plugged in from my phone. AND I always used the pro logic setting because I didn't really know what the settings meant, and it seemed the most "high tech".

 

[afterlife2]

Been doing my Yammy 5ch Stereo on my LP/CD so much fun.

 

[Mark E. Long]

Useing the 9.2 channel stereo in my Yamaha I’ve found it to be a very emersive listing experience with 2 channel with multi channel recordings scad , dvd audio or dts recordings it’s a very realistic soundstage in my room . With 2 channel in 9.2 stereo if it’s set up to your room it can be a very convincing if the source material is well recorded .

 

[MrBoat]

One simply does not need more than two channels for two channel music unless perhaps, their room really sux, or something like that. I was just listening to Patricia Barber's; "Yet Another In a Long Series of Yellow Car." It has someone marching across the stage, from left to right, and back again. You can observe every step in pretty exacting increments all the way through. This, from only two speakers. Granted that they are SEOS waveguides, but still just two, two way speakers. I get the same effect when using the same speakers for video games or movies. Nothing is missing, or I would pony up and spend the money to fix it.

Another observation of some older jazz. Gene Ammons, to be exact. You can pick the placement of each player in the band, as if you were at the show, even as far back ('60s, or so) as this was recorded. I started to go down the surround rabbit hole, until I stopped and analyzed what it was I was actually after. I am 95% two channel music, a movie maybe once a month or so, and some video games. Uncomplicating the music was probably the best thing I did, after getting some great speakers. I probably won't have to buy/build another thing, in what's left of my life.