How do you listen to 2 channels CD? (1 Viewer)

If most people are already happy with 2.0 or 2.1 listening for CD, then MC music never had a chance. I fear the same conclusion for any MC music format for HD DVD and/or Blu-ray.

Originally submitted by Kevin C. Brown

(I apologize for the hassle in voting in this thread. Hopefully it will work now. - Parker)

I don't agree. I prefer listening to CD as 2.1 but I am buying nothing but SACD and DVDA now, probably 75% MC and the rest Stereo.

I have not found a DSP for 2 channel that sounds anything like discretely mixed 4.0, 5.0, 5.1 (and I am running an AVM30 - Anthem Logic is pretty good, but not 'that' good). If the mix was intentionally done as 2 channel, then I prefer listening to it that way.

what does MC stand for?

Seth=L

Multi Channel

typically 5.1, meaning 5 speakers - Front Left, Center, Front Right and Left and Right Surrounds. The .1 is the Subwoofer.

Sorry never saw MC to abbreviate Multi-Channel before.

Thanx,

Seth=L

IMO if more people heard REAL surround music made from the original studio multitracks i.e. not the usually messy and/or random mixes produced by their receivers' DSP system (DPLII, hall, club, etc) I bet a lot of them would buy into the format. And that includes Dolby/DTS on dvd-video discs.

I voted for stereo listening for my CDs (and vinyl & radio too).

This is very true. The first Multi-channel music I bought was Sheryl Crow Globe Sessions. It was a 6.1 DTS-ES CD (Not the DVD-audio). It sounded terrible the stereo cd blow it away. Tons of bass information had been removed and the mix was poorly done (it seems likely it was extracted from the original two channel mix). I have a DVD-audio sample disc with 5.1 and 6.1 mixes on it that sound excellent. My hope is that they will offer music HD-DVD's and Blu-Ray's with video and mlp lossless surround sound and high resolution stereo mixes.

Seth=L

I can understand 2.1, especially if you have monitors or other less than full-range speakers. But I've never understood why would anyone want to process a 2 channel music recording to 5.1 or 7.1. A movie soundtrak or TV show, maybe, but not a 2 channel music recording.

OTOH, if that recording was mastered for multi-channel then I will listen to the MC version and the 2 channel version, then decided which one I prefer. Often it is the 2 channel version, particularly when dealing with older recordings. But I am listening to more MC/SACD/DVD-A recordings, mainly newer material.

I listen all three ways, but more often 2.0 than the other choices. I first got into multi-channel with quadraphonic in the 70's and I like DVD-A/SACD a whole better but it was clear to me in the 70's and still clear today, listening to music this way is not of much interest to the masses. I don't think any amount of marketing or demonstrations or hype will change that in my lifetime. Some multichannel mixes are great, some are not but even though I tried to limit exposing friends only to the great mixes, that did not result in any converts. So what, not everybody wants to pay for a Mercedes Benz, and no amount of marketing will change that. Some products should serve small markets. Blu-ray and HD DVD won't be mass market products and the associated high resolution audio only formats will appeal to an even smaller group.

Chris

Why don't you think that HD-DVD or Blu-Ray won't become mass market product? Considerign these formats abilities they can support high resolution video and audio simultaneously

Seth=L

All 2 channel CD I own I play in Direct mode, using the DAC on my Sony ES9000. It is a SACD player but only capable of 2.0 so I end up listening to my SACD MC discs in 2.0 direct. It wasn't until later that SACD MC came about and I wasn't about to spend more money to upgrade.

Vinyl get 2.0 direct processing.

On DVD and DVD-A, I do listen to the DTS tracks when available, else it's DD if the DVD-A has them. Else it's Stereo on DVD-A if I'm SOL in other formats.

I have a set of tower speakers to support the options above.

2.1 or 2.0 for me. Most DSPs don't do it for me - they sound artificial.

I think one or the other will do well enough to survive but will never achieve more than a small fraction of the market DVD will continue to enjoy throughout the life of the survivor. I think a similarity between how LaserDisc did during the time of VHS will be seen although DVD does much better than VHS did in terms of sales and the survivor will do much better than LaserDisc did. DVD is very good even on HDTV displays, although the larger the display the more needed something better becomes. For a few, DVD isn't good enough, but that is clearly the exception, not the rule.

Chris

Please don't take this the wrong way, but do you use a tweaked, multi-thousand dollar system to do 5.1 music demos? Because I think that such a system, while it sounds great, can be very intimidating to non-audio hobbyists. Intimidating as in a daily operation manner.....and possibly financially speaking too.

While no one has bought a dvd-audio or sacd player after I let them listen to surround music, two people have bought some discs (one guy bought Beck's Guero & the Crystal Method disc, the other Linkin Park's Reanimation). That's all so far but better than nothing.

The surround portion of my system costs @$1400 & consists of a Technics SA-DA8 receiver, various Infinity & Boston Acoustics large bookshelf speakers and for the rear channels, $100/pair Pioneer "H" series speakers w/8" woofers. My dvd-audio player is a $330 Pioneer DV-656A but I don't play the MLP tracks, just the Dolby/DTS ones via the receiver's decoder. And I make sure to remind the listeners a couple times during the demo that it is Dolby/DTS they are listening to & not the "audiophile" tracks (since none of my buddies are into audio and don't own dvd-audio players, why bother?). If they ask I will play the MLP tracks, but on my system DTS tracks sound very close to the MLP tracks & even I have to listen closely for several seconds to tell them apart on this mid-fi system.

And this may freak out some people here, but I do the initial demos without the subwoofer or center speaker engaged (receiver set to "no sub"/"no center"). Since the surround effect is created by the front & rear channels only, I start with those first.* This way the listeners know they don't have to buy a full 5.1 system to experience something really different. Then I add in the center to show them what that can do, then lastly the sub (which is just adds more bass, a relative thing, especially with music; the Bostons' 8" woofers provide plenty of music bass, flat down to 42Hz, in my small living room).

No, I am not a normal audio hobbyist.

* most of my dvd-audios don't even use the center channel anyway & when they do, its contribution can be quite limited (Guero for example) and/or subtle (Simple Minds).

I use modest inexpensive systems and actually have 3 now with the one I am putting together in my girlfriend's house. Samsung and Pioneer universal players, Yamaha RX-V2300 receiver and similar but older receivers in the others. Speakers are modest, Fluance, Wharfedale, Marek, and JBL. TiVo and D-VHS prevalent for video in HDTV. 720p LCD projectors and a KV-30XBR910 30" display for video. In the 70's I had Quad 8-track and open reel tape and a few Quad LPs. For some odd reason, the 70's quad music brings great prices on eBay, but I don't think it is worth having and stupidly tossed a few thousand dollars of tapes based on the prices I have seen. DVD-A and SACD will be with me for the rest of my life and I also like a lot of DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 music on DVD's.

I think marketed as a niche product, something should find its footing. If expectations are for mass market acceptance, I don't think anything will change and 70's quad and recent DVD-A/SACD type failures will be once again realized.

Chris

I have a universal player and enjoy both formats. Unfortunately much if the music I would buy is not available in either format. I find myself listening to many of My stereo cd's in Prologic II Music mode, and unlike some find the effects very satisfying. I can't help but agree there will be no widescale market for any MC music. Most people want to listen to downloaded music on there mp3 players, if You want to listen to music on a cell phone there's not much reason to worry about sound quality.

Don't get me wrong, I do think some music does sound quite good using DPLII, Logic7, etc. But part of the reason I use the word "artificial" so much when discussing those systems is to let people new to 5.1 music know that such systems aren't the end all/be all of surround, espeically since many recordings don't decode very well through those systems.

And now that the pseudo-matrixed(?) "Neural" 5.1 system is being used by XM Radio, even more people will think ALL surround music stinks (S&V did a test of it and my distinct impression is that they weren't exactly impressed by it). :frowning:

I agree that DSPs don't sound as natural. I use Rel subs in my main system. They have both a low level input for HT and a high (speaker) level input for music with its own crossover and volume control. The speakers in my main system (Thiel 7.2s) are full range and I run stereo subs crossed over at 22HZ. They don't do tons on music except for those discs with low level bass and high output of the bass to hear with less distortion.

Don't have a single answer for the poll question, so didn't vote. A CD is stereo, and stereo listening is fine for me, but not uncommonly I use Pro-Logic processing just because I'm curious to find out how much antiphase is actually in the recording — often quite a lot! Sometimes I wonder how many of these recordings were actually deliberately mastered for matrix reproduction. For most of what I listen to, it's not easy to find out ; in fact a good deal of it is music recordings I have made using my PC from my LaserDisc collection…

I sometimes use Pro Logic, neo:6 and Logic 7 on 2 channel cd's. The results can range from pretty good (for what they are) to kind of flat. Most often I use 5 channel stereo. I have the center channel turned off and the surrounds boosted quite a bit. My H/K avr's don't offer much in the way of DSP's. The Onkyo and Pioneer's I've used did have quite a few options, some of them sounded interesting, but I eventually went back to 5 ch stereo.