Quote Originally Posted by Bernd
There is no way I would surround myself with 5,6 or 7 speakers and a boombox or two. I much rather take all the money and invest in a decent pair of Speakers and electronics, sort the room out and you will have all the holograhic imaging, dynamics, soundstage and an accurate ghost centre channel you can wish for. I do not need some noise coming from behind me.
I never understood why someone want to split all their hard earned into several boxes when a much higher quality can be had with higher grade components.
But I guess we all have different likes and wants and good luck to the Multi channel people.
So in answer to the question: Yes ,I think for great music reproduction, it's stupid and a great marketing ploy.

Peace

Bernd
Very uneducated post. First two channel stereo is littered with spatial distortions when you exclude the room. It is unable to accruately place discrete reflections that are present in EVERY concert hall in the world. It using the rooms internal reflections as "spatial ques" which are neither present in the recording, or recording hall itself.

Secondly, based on your comments you have never visited any live musical event, because every venue (depending on how the acoustics are treated) has discrete reflections that eminate from behind the head, and can be spatially located with the ears, and can be accurately reproduced in a 5.1 system.

With a 5.1 system, audio engineers can spread the left and right channels to a greater degree than can be done with stereo thanks to the presence of a center channel. This makes information easier to hear, and imaging much more specific than with two channel sources.

Two channel CD has some difficulties with certain kinds of harmonics. A muted trumpet, a glock, cymbals, and a few other instruments with high intensity high frequency harmonics tend to distort, sound flat and unresolved when compared to a higher sampled mastered tape that has been downsampled to this format.

I cannot understand why someone would spend huge sums of money of a two channel format that cannot do something as simple as place a live audience in its proper spatial perspective, has no spatial perspective from the sides or rear which occur in live events, and cannot properly reproduce some harmonic of instrments accurately.

Anyone who thinks that two channel is the pinnacle of audio nirvana is simply fooling themselves.