My question is... if I bought a good 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound receiver, and had good speakers all round, properly placed, how good does it actually sound?
I think for movies it’s a must however, not so much for music. As mentioned above most discrete 5.1 audio are concert recordings and most of what you hear behind you is crowd noise. Sometimes you can hear the music reflected back but so far I’ve been unimpressed with 5.1 concert recordings.
On the other hand some simulated surround modes do make some 2.0 audio recordings sound interesting. Usually most of the vocals still come from the front while the music surrounds you. I think the surround modes tend to impress non-audiophiles more since they haven’t spent so much time training and adapting their ears to a certain style of listening.
Generally for me really good audio recording still sound best in 2.0 and sometimes in 2.1. I think they loose more than they gain from going multi channel. On the other hand less impressive recordings usually do sound better in some sort of surround mode.
Does the signal processor create some distortion or muck up the sound quality?
Not sure if distortion would be the right word but some of the vocals usually bleed through to the surround speakers when using simulated surround modes. For me it’s not to noticeable unless your right up near them.
More significant is the center channel speaker if it‘s not the exact same as your left and right mains. If ,as in my case it’s a smaller dedicated enclosed center channel speaker, why would I want to send part of the front channels to it rather than sending all the front channels to the main tower speakers. There are reasons for doing it especially for movies if your audience are dispersed around the listening area and you want to keep the action and dialogue anchored to the screen. But for audio I feel it universally makes the front soundstage sound worse unless all three front speakers are the same model. I use a phantom center channel, playing it’s track through the main speakers. I can get away with this even for movies since I’m always in the sweet spot.
Does the music really surround you, or is it hit and miss?
In most simulated modes it does. How it sounds depends on the effect you have chosen like “5 channel stereo“, “concert hall,” “jazz club,” or what ever else the receiver has available. If your not a purist the effects can sound nice.
Again where the simulated surround shines the most in my opinion is with 2.0 movies and TV. The improvement the effects give just seem more significant with video as a opposed to audio sources.
Does the quality of the surround effect depend much on the brand, or the price?
Everything I tried was all in the same price range so I can’t say. But I imagine spending more money on a receiver wouldn’t make as much difference as spending the money on the speakers. On exception might be if you like to play things loud and are trying to drive all the speakers with AV receiver without enough power.
Best I can suggest is try to find some way to listen to someone’s 5.1 or 7.1 system. It might help give you an idea if you’ll like it. For me 5.1 isn’t worth it just for music. As part of a home theater, gaming, TV system the audio is a nice added bonus.
Just my opinion,
Dean
