EQ approaches???

[Woochifer]

...IMO only carefully produced, minimally processed, two-channel stereo material has even the remotest chance of presenting natural sounding audio...this excludes most modern effluvia and just about ALL HT...particularly 5.1, 6.1, 7.1 ad infinitum...

Most is a product of the lab...the lab, in this case, being the recording studio or workstation...contrived and measured for maximum "WOW!" factor...

Of course that would depend on whether "natural" sound is a system goal to begin with! Most instruments nowadays are amplified, which makes the reference points elusive at best. Not every recording is done for "wow" factor (most are pretty standard issue, and certainly tamer than in the early days of multitracked stereo recordings with all the extreme channel segregation of instruments and side-to-side panning effects), but most are certainly not trying to replicate an acoustic perspective either.

But, with regard to what actually sounds natural, IMO the best multichannel music recordings I've heard produce a more open and natural sound than any two-channel tracks I've heard. Ironically, the multichannel recording that probably gives me the best "audience" perspective for a large hall performance is probably my SACD of the St. Louis Symphony performing Gershwin's orchestral/piano works, which was originally recorded for quad LP release using a minimal miking technique. The two-channel version has long been one of my best evaluation discs, but the multichannel version gave me a sense of space that the two-channel mix never projected. Now I'm curious about the acoustics of Powell Hall, because the multichannel playback certainly gave me a feel for how the orchestra would potentially sound at that venue.

The San Francisco Symphony's Mahler cycle is another great set of multichannel recordings that convey the sound off the stage very well, but they aim more for a "podium" perspective that seems to convey the mic position very well. Davies Hall has a hard sound coming off the stage and does not have very reverberant acoustics, and the multichannel track does a much better job at conveying this than the two-channel track does.

Another multichannel recording that will take the audience perspective better than anything I've heard from a two-channel playback is Bucky Pizzarelli's Swing Live DVD-A which was recorded in a jazz club. There too, I've heard both the two-channel mix, which is already astonishing in how well it takes the listener into the club, and here too, the multichannel playback simply takes things to a different level because the spatial relationship between the stage and the audience is more clearly defined by the playback. Plus, you hear the audience members all around you, just like you would in a crowded jazz club setting. And if you're really obsessive, that DVD-A has an additional six-channel track available that redirects the subwoofer and center channels into two high mounted speakers to further convey a sense of height and ambiance

The caveat of course is that proper multichannel playback is trickier to setup, with more pieces that have to fall into place. The alignment has to be done right, and you have to use the right settings. But, once you have the details nailed down, the results can be startling. And the thing to keep in mind is that most demo rooms are not properly setup for multichannel music -- from the speaker alignment to the level matching to the delay timing to the system settings. So, unless you've spent a lot of time around multichannel systems and taken the time to set them up properly, you likely have not heard multichannel music as it should be done.

[Resident Loser]

...the quote you cited was intended to be the foundation for what followed...i.e. the folly of relying on most recorded music as any sort of basis (in lieu of calibrated signal sources and measurement devices)for system equalization...much like the wisful thinking of soundstaging in what for the most part is a contrived and manipulated sonic landscape, totally devoid of the required cues and artifacts that occur in nature.

The result may in fact be the aural equivalent of trompe l'oeil and pleasant to listen to, but given it's overall "iffyness" hardly a reliable representation upon which to base what should be an objective process.

jimHJJ(...at least at the outset...)

[Feanor]

....

The result may in fact be the aural equivalent of trompe l'oeil and pleasant to listen to, but given it's overall "iffyness" hardly a reliable representation upon which to base what should be an objective process.

jimHJJ(...at least at the outset...)

RL, I like the quotes in you signature.

Deception and self-deception are a big problem for audiophiles.

[superpanavision70mm]

People act like multichannel sound is something new. Meanwhile quadphonic recordings go back to the 70's. Sound is a 360 degree experience and while I am not a big fan of certain playfulness that goes into some 5.1 remixes, there are some prime examples (mostly in the SACD format) where the original masters sound more like they should. Plus with SACD you can choose 2.0 or 5.1, which is always a plus!