For now, 5.1 surround isn't going to carry any format to market success

Rachael B · 02-09-2005, 12:53 PM

More than two channels didn't make Quad a success in the 70's and it has not taken DVD-A and SA-CD too far. Face it, the notion that M/C is the little engine that could is/was wishful thinking. The notion that you need more than one or two speakers to enjoy music is not gonna spread like wildfire any time soon.

Selling surround music to hardcore audio-vidiots is possible but for everybody else it's like trying to sell them moldy cheese at inflated prices.

I never believed the myth that 5.1 was the "killer application" of DVD-A and SACD. I thought that was bull and wishful thinking from the start.

Someday the myth may become real but I think that's a decade down the road... Wish what you want but for now 5.1 is no killer ap.

Phil A · 02-09-2005, 01:05 PM

Rachael, I agree. With modern DSPs, the surround sound taken from a higher quality source than DD like CD can be made to sound more realistic and suited to individual tastes more as one can select the size hall they like and push a button and get a different choice. The DSPs are no harder to select or set-up than setting up the receiver for DD. The notion that a 5.1 mix was going to make products fly off the shelves is overly optimistic. I think much boils to down to price. Consumers often feel that music is overpriced as much as if not more often than quality of sound issues.

charles white · 02-09-2005, 01:19 PM

In a sense, I agree with you, Rachel. The discussion of poor marketing and the pros and cons of a format war has been discussed to no end. I still believe there's life in 5.1 audio. The music industry didn't place their bets on 5.1 audio being its life jacket in a sea of profit losses. In fact, they're still searching.

Kris Deering · 02-09-2005, 03:19 PM

I can't agree at all with this. I haven't met a single person yet that wasn't blown away when comparing MC to stereo on my system, and my system is anything but low end. The stereo performance of my system rivals anything I've heard to date at almost any cost.

The problem is none of the stores are doing demos to attract people to the idea. Unless they know about it or hear it they don't know what they are missing. I have NEVER been in a specialty audio or big department electronics store that has had a MC music demo on. Plenty of movies, but never stuff like SA-CD or DVD-A. So as long as the general public is unaware, the formats go nowhere.

AricB · 02-09-2005, 03:24 PM

Kris is right about that, i dont know anyone who wasnt pretty impressed by it on my system, and i'm nowhere near the level he has. Also, I've never been anywhere that was demoing good surround music materil, except a Tweeter, but that was by my request, and the guy knew less about it than i did.

Kris, how excited are you to here that new NIN album, last I heard it was still supposed to be a day/date release of With Teeth.... and more remixed back catalog down the road...

**HTF Ads**

Garrett Lundy · 02-09-2005, 03:55 PM

I was never a big fan of Hi-Rez surround. Even if there were a single format, none of the companies seemed to master anything the same way: Chesky records wants 6.0 with 2 front towers at 30 degrees, 2 rear towers at a different 30 degrees, and 2 side channels at 90 degrees. Somebody else doesnt use a center channel, someone else records with bipolar surrounds, another uses dipolar, some use subs, most don't.

To get the best results you'll need dozens of sets of loudspeakers in a hundred variable positions in your listening room (and what makes a proper listening room? Thats a whole 'nother list of conflicting demands!).

IE: It was never going to work, and if mankind decides to try another Hi-Rez format in the future they will need to decide specific recording & playback criteria for all recorded music, Not just a single format (but that would be a huge step forward too).

I personally like 2-channel (and mono) SACD. It works on every pair of stereo speakers that have been manufacured since they made stereo speakers (only need a new player), and you don't even need to move them to different positions in the room.

Rachael B · 02-09-2005, 04:16 PM

Kris & Eric, what you say is true for you and a scant few other people. Kris, people are impressed by my systems too, but, and this is the big bUT, it doesn't cause them to spend thousands thousands of dollars the next week to aqquire similar stuff.

There will come a day when enough really good A/V equipment is in the hands of Joe & Jane Sexpack that 5.1 music has a real audience, or maybe not. Processing modes may win out in the battle of/for/about M/C music...? Spinning a dial that let's you pick from a list of processing modes is more the mass market consumer's speed in the end.

The big 4 seem to be "wal-mart-izing". That seems to be the present trend. Getting these now behemoth entities to give a s*it about about even doing 2-channel well proably isn't going to be easy, much less anything more advanced. When the majors have actually bothered to release hi-rez material it was almost always old stuff, not newly recorded stuff that even took advantage of the new technologies.

Has Warner created any new state-of-the-art recordings especially for hi-rez? Any? Sony did about 2 all DSD recordings. That's all I know of anyways. These organizations have a commitment to raising prices not quality, despite any guises they might show otherwise, IMO.

"...money for nothin'..."

Rachael B · 02-09-2005, 04:21 PM

...I just remembered that Warner did Neil Young's Greendale. I'm up to 1!

John Kotches · 02-09-2005, 05:36 PM

Garrett:

You've hit on something that is near and dear to Gary Reber's (WSR Editor-in-chief) heart.

Having a consistent, defined standard for surround music mixing and mastering that can be reproduced in the home so that we are listening "as intended".

This is one area that the music industry could learn from the movie industry on, having defined standards to adhere to, which would allow for consumers to reproduce the environment quite accurately.

While most won't really care about this, the hardcore enthusiasts would be able to better approximate this without moving speakers all over the place :-)

Cheers,

Lewis Besze · 02-09-2005, 05:53 PM

Rachael, did you forget the tremendous success of music video sales on DVD which are 5.1? The public didn't reject surround music only the Hi-rez carriers.[Your thread title denotes "any format".]

PaulDA · 02-09-2005, 06:42 PM

I've tried using my receiver's DSP (Pro Logic II, DTS Neo:6) for two channel music and, sometimes it's as good (to me) as the original, but often not (the exception so far has been Dolby 2.0 music broadcasts from my digital cable box--seems as though it's already encoded with some sort of surround). However, with hi-res discrete MCH recordings (of which I have around 35 or so), in all cases (except one track on one DVD-A) I have preferred the MCH to the two channel, and this despite the lack of standards. It gets more difficult for me to choose something from my CD collection to listen to, even though I have about six times as many CDs as hi-res discs, partly because even the two channel only hi-res discs I have sound better, but in large part because discrete MCH recordings have been so impressive--to me and all others I've made listen to it. They don't go out and buy $$$$$ equipment to replicate what I have at home, but not everyone bought a CD player back in the day when I was a relatively early adopter (first among my friends), and most of my friends liked CD a lot when they heard it in my set up back then. Hi-res has been out a while, but it's still early days yet. I wouldn't write off hi-res or MCH music just yet.