Welp.... Stevo's at it again!!!!! This time Surround Sound is dead!!!!

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I have lived with surround for about 10 years. I am also fully aware of how the brain works in this instance, and that it can fill in the holes, so to speak. I've also discovered that the better a system is, the less the brain has to process the sound.

And just what listening tests(as opposed to your highly biased listening experience), and how many listeners can confirm your findings?

Neither the Canadian Radio Society, nor Dr. Peter Toole's listening test confirm this. This is not to mention testing done at THX, and DTS.

I am calling your statement BS, because no matter the quality of the system, it is the format that is the issue. The brain cannot fill in what is not there, it does not just make things up from thin air.

If you are so aware of how the brain works, then how come you don't seem to understand that in order for the brain to fill in the holes, it has to work extremely hard to do so?

The only downside to stereo is that the image shifts when a person moves out of the center. This shift can be minimized with proper speaker setup.

You don't seem to have a clue about how the ear/brain mechanism works

No it cannot, and science does not support this. This is an issue of timing and phase, and it cannot be avoided by any speaker placement. Anytime you are out of the center, the timing of the arrival of the signals will shift to the speaker closest to you. This is why a solid center speaker is so vital if you sit off axis. No matter how you shift the speakers, the timing error will still exist.

In addition, depending on the degree of speaker dispersion, the tonal qualities also change when off center. Then there are HRT effects, as you mentioned, which can be reduced with a center speaker, but it isn't completely eliminated.

Wrong again. A center channel carrying it own discrete information is not subject to timing errors the same way as two speakers with blended output(vocals in the center).

Quite frankly, I don't think it's that big of a deal. My own experiments in this shows that a small degree of improvement can be had when taking this into account, but it's hardly note worthy. Speaker and room setup is vastly more important than anything that HRT can do to degrade the image.

Your listening tests are unscientific, biased, and allow you to hear exactly what you want to hear(subjective hearing). And again, you are dead wrong. No matter the quality of the speaker, or the acoustics of the room, HRTE are going to occur with two channel, because it is a head size related effect, not a speaker or room related effect.

Do you want to spew more nonsense?

We've spoken about these things before and technically you are correct, but I don't think you put things in perspective. Every room sounds different, every speaker sounds different, so do you really think that these minor problems with 2 channel are even worth spending a second of brain power on.

I don't think(and never have) that you quite understand what you are talking about, and I have told you this before. Two channel from the very beginning was a compromise. In spite of Bell Labs extensive listening tests on 2 channel and 3 channels setups, vinyl could only handle mono at first, and later stereo. Vinyl cannot handle anymore channels than that without some sort of matrixing, or dual carrier scheme(quadraphonics).

Why would a person waste a single second on something that improves the audio minimally when there are so many things that do matter.

They do when they understand how the ear/brain mechanism works. You have a tendency to dismiss or minimalize what you cannot get your head around, and that leads to ignorant, unscientific, and biased statements over and over again.

You don't understand, I was speaking about music. I haven't changed my mind about movie audio. Why do you think I rarely use my surround system.

Probably because it is a poorly setup piece of crap. Signals are signals, whether they are music, or soundtracks. A well setup and calibrated system sitting in a room who's acoustical issues are addressed does not know the difference.

You may think that audio engineers and techs like yourself are producing a quality product, but not from my perspective.

Who gives a damn about your perspective? Your system is poorly set up, so from what perspective can you challenge an audio engineer who system is well setup, constantly calibrated(before each session) and sits in a room the was built from the ground up to get excellent acoustics and sound isolation? You have a penchant for over valueing you own opinions and perspectives - it is purely subjective, not objective.

While surround movies can be entertaining, it's not worth the effort to have to keep turning the volume up and down throughout the movie, or to have dialog buried so deep in the noise (booms and bangs) that no one can understand what is being said.

Funny, this does not occur on the dubbing stage, not in the theater, and not on a system that is well designed and sitting in a room who acoustics are addressed. This only happens when the center channel is poorly calibrated, sitting in a room node, and of a different design than the L/R speakers. We have standards(that your room and system apparently does not follow). Dialog has a priority over any and everything in the mix. Dubbing stages and professional theaters(not to mention any good multichannel music system) use three identical speakers across the front. If you center speaker differs in any way from the L/R speakers, or if the acoustics of the room is reflection heavy, then dialog intelligibility issues will occur. Don't blame the mix, blame your system that you know is not perfect(or even close to it).

How do you square this contradictory statement with this one?

While I'm here, I would like to say that since I've upgraded my system, I owe recording engineers an apology. I've been complaining about recording quality for a very long time, but since my upgrade, I've discovered that many recordings are better than I could have imagined. Even CD quality is acceptable and sometimes impressive.

Sounds to me like you don't know your bum from a hole in the ground.

I cringe every time an action scene comes along.

That is because your system is incapable of reproducing it accurately.

This isn't a problem with the hardware, if you get my drift. Occasionally, there are movies that sound pretty good in surround.

Yes it is a problem with hardware. It is a problem with acoustics as well.

Agreed, you don't get surround sound from 2 channel. Even if you add more speakers, each room adds it's own flavor to the sound.

Wrong again. The more speakers you add to a room, the less you hear that room. You obviously have never heard of the "presence effect" or the rule of intensity dominance.

Besides, for music, hearing room ambiance to the sides and rear is minimally important and adds very little to the event.

Ignorant BS! Once again, and uneducated opinion can never be confused with facts. Sean Olive, Dr. Floyd Toole, Paul Barton have all done reflection testing, and their results disagree with your uneducated opinion. Read;

http://audioroundtable.com/misc/Loud..._and_Rooms.pdf

Notice these words;

A review of the scientific literature reveals that natural reflections in ...... lateral reflection caused a perceptible change in the size or location ...

Dr. Toole came to this conclusion with a highly optimized system(with adjustable acoustics), and 2,000 listeners. You came to your conclusions is a poorly set up system, with just your old ears.

read this;

Loudspeaker Placement in Small Rooms | Richard's Stuff

Notice this statement.

Ideally we need to delay the arrival of lateral reflections at the listening position by (at least) about 6ms relative to the direct sound

You cannot do this with 2 channel, because you have no control of the arrival time of lateral reflections(you can control the amplitude by adding or taking away sound absorbing panels). You can do this with surround by just adding 6ms of delay to the side speakers which carry the natural reflections recorded in the hall.

If a room is set up properly, there are enough subtle reflections to give the illusion of being in a bigger room.

This shows you do not understand the concept of reverberation time and reflection density in small rooms. To give the illusion of a larger room, the reverberation time has to be longer. Most casual listening rooms rely on reflection density(diffusion), which can degrade imaging at certain frequencies.

I've been to many movie theaters and listened to some higher end surround systems and in all cases, the depth of the soundstage is reduced compared to 2 channel.

That is because you are used to hearing artificial depth via room reflections that are not in the recording. They are room borne. In movie theaters and well set up surround systems, the frontal reflections are eliminated either by absorption panels, or by a baffle wall. So what you are hearing is exactly what is on the recording, untouched by front wall reflections. The depth of the sound field is in the mix, not in the room. Any depth added by the room reflections is a distortion of the recording itself. It may be pleasing to the ear with just two speakers, but it is a distortion of the room acoustical laid over the original output from the speakers

Perhaps this is a software problem? Besides, a good 2 channel system already produces a depth that is seemingly without limit.

Based solely on room reflections that are not on the recording. We call this spatial distortion, and you have obviously gotten used to listening to various types of room distortions.

The problem I have with a center speaker is that it seems to layer the sound, voices in the front, noise to the back.

That is what the center channel is supposed to do dummy! Dialog is given priority over other sounds in the center channel mix.

In 2 channel the performers are in the room, in surround, the performer is in front of the room.

This is the mother of all stupid statements. In 2 channel, the performers are in the front of the room just like surround. No different. If you have two speakers in the front of the room(stereo) then voices can only come from where the speakers are.

Please think about what you are saying before you post.

Software problem again? Anyway, it's not always bad. Surround can be fun, but realistic, it is not.

If it is a software problem, it is a problem of both stereo and surround. Voices come from the same direction on both.

We spoke of how the brain effects a persons perception and I think “you” hear what you want, or what “you” expect to hear.

You don't know what I hear, you don't have my ears. This comment applies to you as well.

This is reminiscent of the many times Bose owners think their speakers sound as good as a highend system.

Have you asked ALL Bose owners if they think their system is as good as a high end system, or are you talking out of you bum AGAIN!!!

I'll take the latter.

I don't hear what you do nor do I want to.

Yeah, you like coloration, degradation, and distortions, I don't.

I think you are deceiving yourself into believing that surround is as good as you think it is.

I think you are deceiving yourself into believing stereo is as good as you think it is. Science and listening tests from MANY do not support this.

Perhaps it has the potential of being the latest and greatest, but I haven't had that experience yet.

Then perhaps you need to shut up until you do.

As a matter of fact, adding more speakers creates problems of it's own. Many of us spend countless hours positioning our speakers and treating the room just to get 2 channel to sound as good as possible.

The reason you have to go through all this trouble with two channel is because you hear FAR, FAR, more room with just two speakers than you would hear with 6 or 8 speakers. Yes adding speakers does create some problems - you have to have the room to properly place them. This is a problem that can easily be handled by scaling the system properly to the room. Since speaker manufacturers have no come up with high quality mini-monitors(see Harbeth, PSB, ATC and several others) designed for smaller room, that problem has been minimized greatly.

Beside, you saying that multiple lower quality speakers are better than two really good speakers is ludicrous.

Lower quality is a matter of perspective. What you consider as lower quality is based on price and size, not actual measurements and listening. What your air head does not seem to grasp is that the burden of quality in two channels rests on just TWO SPEAKERS. Two speakers that have to reproduce vocals, instruments, and the ambiance of the recording. In order for all of that to be clearly heard, you need high quality speakers. With surround, I can assigned a subwoofer to handle the bass frequencies(takes the burden off the main speakers and amps), one dedicated(and similar) speaker for vocals, two dedicated speakers for instruments in the frontal soundstage, and 2-4 speakers to handle recorded ambience. The burden of quality is spread over 6-8 speakers, not just two - so it does not require very large or overly expensive speakers to do a good job. 8 people can build a better house quicker than two people.

I wish you had all the answers, that way all we would have to do ask you, but you don't and you seem to get hung up on issues that are of the least importance.

They are least important to YOU, which is why you have so many complaints about recordings.

You spend your time defending surround as if it's the pinnacle of audio reproduction. At best, it's just different and has it's own limitations and positive attributes, just as stereo does.

Actually, I am not defending surround at all. I just pointing out all of the BS inexperienced and uneducated comments you seem to make all of the time.

You spend an awful amount of time trying to disparage surround, and you don't even have a decent surround system to support what you say. This is why I dismiss you as just another person who talks alot, but does not seem to know very much.