Surround Sound vs 2 channel stereo

[Wireworm5]

Which is your prefered listening experience, Multi-channel stereo(4 or more speakers),2 channel stereo( 2 speakers), Surround Sound(HT 5.1 soundfields)?
I prefer surround sound, which goes back to the days when I had a quadraphonic receiver. I invested in HT for the surround effect, but have since switched to multi-channel stereo for music listening since buying a Yamaha receiver.
In my most recent sound test with a guest. I had my system in 2-channel mode then switched to multi-channel stereo. My guest and I both agreed that multi was better. However I once tried two speakers placed about 5 ft. from the listening position one on the left and one on the right side. The imaging was incrediable, I could not tell the sound was coming from the speakers and seemed halographic.
What's your preference and why?

[skeptic]

Both methods are unsatisfactory for reproduction of many kinds of serious music, especially much classical music. Stereophonic sound was invented in the 1940s by Walt Disney Corporation for the movie Fanatsia which consisted of abstract and non abstract animated film to accompany the Philadelphia symphony orchestra playing about half a dozen famous classical pieces. (Much to Disney's disappointment, the film was a financial failure.) Stereophonic sound was brought into the home in the 1950s with early tape recorders made by Wollensak and in the late 1950s when Westrex invented the first cutter for making stereophonic vinyl phonograph records. The system depends on the assumption that two channels of recording played back through two loudspeakers can trick the human ear and brain into thinking it is hearing the effect of a large number of individual instruments spread across a performing stage. The claims of audiphiles about imaging and all of the tricks and gimmicks introduced over the years notwithstanding, it really doesn't work to that end all that well. If it works at all, you often have to sit in a limited location and probably not move around too much. Turning your head even slightly allows your ears/brain to get a fix on the location of the speakers and identify them as two discrete sources of sound.

The failure of two channel stereophonic sound to reproduce the effect of a 100 piece orchestra spread across a concert stage is insignificant compared to its failure to reproduce the ambience and other effects created by the acoustics of the concert hall. These effects constitute the overwhelming majority of what you hear at a live performance but very little of it makes its way on to recrodings. That's not because recording engineers wouldn't like to put it on the recordings, it's because they don't know how to. That's still beyond the state of the art of recording.

About 1963, Stereo Review magazine published an article which talked about putting a monophonic loudspeaker wired between the L and R hot speaker terminals in the back of a listening room to improve the ambience of recordings. Soon, Dynaco, the first company owned by David Hafler offered the "quadaptor" a device which made it relatively easy to wire two speakers in series in this L minus R configuration although you really didn't need the quadaptor to do this. By the mid seventies, quadraphonic sound was the rage with all types of so called "matrix" systems became available using the L minus R information already on recordings. The matrix systems all were based on different parameters of this idea for recovery of L minus R and so universal matrix decoders became available and some recordings catered to them. Quadraphonic receivers and amplifiers had the decoders built in. There was the SQ, QS, and RM systems and there were others advanced all by likes of CBS labs and Sansui, each championing their favorite. Meanwhile RCA not to be outdone invented the CD-4 system which was a discrete additional two channels recorded from above 20 khz to 40 khz requiring their own decoders and special cd 4 cartridges such as the Empire 4000 DI, DII, and DIII series. Playing cd 4 discs with ordinary styli risked damaging the outband part of the recording. There were also discrete 4 channel open reel tape recorders. All of the systems failed and the whole idea was a commercial disaster because it was a technical failure. Nobody knew how to make a recording that could capture the ambience and installing and adjusting the additional speakers so that you got a realistic ambience effect almost always failed and failed badly. You could always tell where the ambience speakers were located or you couldn't hear any ambience from them at all.

The modern HT multichannel systems got off the ground with high fidelity video tapes and of course DVDs which allow many audio channels to be put on a recording. The purpose is to give you the same movie going experience at least soundwise as you would get in a theater. In other words, it puts you in the middle of the action with bombs going off all around you, jets flying over your head, subway trains going between your legs, cars zooming around you and whatever else the movie can deliver. I won't say it doesn't enhance the enjoyment of home viewing of many commercial movies but I don't see it as a panacea for solving the limitations of the two channel stereophonic method for reproducing music. This solution is still well off in the future. That's what makes the so called high end so laughable to me. It costs a fortune to buy into what objectively seeks to get the last few percent of the small fraction of the total sound experience we do know how to record. Any audiphile who doubts the truth of this should go to more live concerts and take someone with them who has normal hearing but is not an audiophile. After a concert, ask this person to come to your home and listen to your sound system. Play your most convincing recording and ask them if it doesn't sound just like what you heard at the concert. When the laughing stops, you will have your answer.

[mtrycraft]

You didn't mention the early works, 1930s, by Bell Labs ont he need for at least 3 channel up front, the beginning of multi channel. Technology just couldn't bring it into the home until recently.

[skeptic]

Just how old do you think I am? :>)

Even HT audio system manufacturers recognize "the hole in the middle." Anybody else old enough to remember that term? It's meaning is obvious. Center channel speakers and amplifiers are there to mitigate this obvious flaw in the two channel stereophonic system since even for today's listeners, a visual image coming from one direction and dialogue from another is disconcerting.

As for Bell Labs, frankly, I don't know much about what they did way back when. They were of course among the original serious researchers. In those days as "The Telephone Company" Ma Bell had all the money it needed for its scientists to have as many toys to play with as anyone could desire. They were at least for a time, the great reservoir of all knowledge about sound.

[maxg]

Not quite as early as Bell labs but Paul Klipsch was into centre speakers way back in the 1950's too. I seem to recall he built the Heresy followed by the Belle later on as centre speakers for his KHorns. As far as I know he would always listen to 3 channel stereo by choice.

Cant say I have ever really noticed the issue with just 2 speakers - but then again I tend to sit still when listening in a very comfortable leather clad recliner.

Course if you really want a strong centre image just listen to a mono recording through your stereo speakers. All the sound is in the middle!! Tends to work very nicely with Sonatas and small scale instrumental works - not so good with large scale operas and symphonies.

and definitely not for Berlioz' Requiem!!

[skeptic]

The original claim for stereo was that it would create the audible illusion of anything up to an entire orchestra spread across an imaginary stage in your home. Having heard plenty of live orchestras across real stages and plenty of stereo sound systems in my time, all I can say is that the reality of stereo sound always seems to fall far short of the claim even for this limited goal. When people start talking about claims that even exceed this unachievable goal such as the ability to reproduce the acoustics of the live performance, IMO, they are dealing in fantasies. Perhaps they have never really attended live performances in real concert halls. At least not to listen to music that wasn't so deafening that you could actually hear it.

A center channel identical to the left and right and carefully adjusted can eliminate the "hole in the middle." It is an improvement over 2 channels but it is not a complete cure for the problem of localizing individual instruments. As with most ideas that actually work, serious audiophiles have rejected it. I have not seen a photograph or description of even one audiophile's sound system for the purpose of music reproduction which shows the installation of a third center channel.

[Woochifer]

That would obviously depend on the source material. In short, with two-channel source material, I prefer two-channel playback; and with 5.1 multichannel source material, I prefer 5.1 playback. I don't think you can generalize the preferred playback without accounting for the source material.

When you're talking about multichannel stereo, that basically entails playing back a two-channel source through at least four speakers, right? Given a choice between that and two-channel playback for that particular source material, I would opt for the two-channel playback. IMO, when you're using a multichannel stereo DSP mode with two-channel source material, you're basically distorting the original intent of the soundtrack. The better done two-channel mixes create a very strong phantom center image, and applying extra speakers there may give you some simulated surround coverage, but you ruin the center image in the process. Some two-channel sources are suitable for playback through the Dolby Surround decoder, which can extract some ambient information into the surround channels depending on how it was mixed.

And conversely, playing a 5.1 source in two-channel is an equally problematic approach. 5.1 mixes are done specifically with multichannel setups in mind, and all of the imaging cues are done specifically for that configuration; there is no checking on how that soundtrack will sound during two-channel playback. When you force a processor/receiver/DVD player to downmix the 5.1 soundtrack to two-channel, it's done according to predefined levels with no verification or encoding; so any imaging or spatiality that you get in the playback is more by accident than by design.

With 5.1 playback on a 5.1 source, you're getting the soundtrack the way it was intended to be heard. By playing back a 5.1 soundtrack in two-channel, you're getting something completely random -- sometimes it can sound great and other times it can sound totally out of whack compared to the 5.1 playback. With a properly calibrated system and timbre matched speakers, I can't imagine the two-channel mixdown ever sounding better than the 5.1 playback on a 5.1 source.

[Beckman]

Which is your prefered listening experience, Multi-channel stereo(4 or more speakers),2 channel stereo( 2 speakers), Surround Sound(HT 5.1 soundfields)?
I prefer surround sound, which goes back to the days when I had a quadraphonic receiver. I invested in HT for the surround effect, but have since switched to multi-channel stereo for music listening since buying a Yamaha receiver.
In my most recent sound test with a guest. I had my system in 2-channel mode then switched to multi-channel stereo. My guest and I both agreed that multi was better. However I once tried two speakers placed about 5 ft. from the listening position one on the left and one on the right side. The imaging was incrediable, I could not tell the sound was coming from the speakers and seemed halographic.
What's your preference and why?

I enjoy my two channel stereo because of economic reasons. I usually listen alone, so I always sit between the speakers and like you said it is halographic. I find myself occasionaly looking at the door, because it sounds like someone had just walked into the room, you really can't tell where the sound is coming from.

[E-Stat]

Which is your prefered listening experience, Multi-channel stereo(4 or more speakers),2 channel stereo( 2 speakers), Surround Sound(HT 5.1 soundfields)?

Clearly multichannel has a theoretical advantage and there are a handful of excellent recordiings available today (mostly classical on Telarc) in that format. The quadrophonic thing in the 70s was doomed to failure IMHO because of it's hokie micing where it sounded like half of the Santana band is playing from the back of the auditorium and the other half from the front. Similarly, most HT mixes are designed from a "surround effects" perspective and a voice-only track as center channel.

As for me, I'm still living with two-channel until the format matures. The very best two channel is quite good to me, albeit kinda pricey. The room (and treatments) is everything.

rw