- Joined
- Jun 10, 2003
- Messages
- 26,274
- Real Name
- Josh Steinberg
Adding to potential confusion, there is a whole generation or two of Onkyo receivers (and possibly other brands sharing a similar build) that cannot decode DTS-HD MA 2.0 tracks into anything other than L/R stereo. It’s a limitation of their chipset and processing. They can handle matrixed surround (or mono for that matter) just fine when it’s PCM, Dolby TrueHD, regular Dolby and regular DTS, but not DTS-HD MA. There’s nothing on the receiver to indicate that it can’t do that, though, so if you don’t know about that shortcoming you might never find out about it and just assume you’re hearing what you’re supposed to.
Separately, many of the studios and labels no longer accurately indicate on the packaging or disc menus what the track is meant to be. It’ll just say “2.0” or “2.0 stereo” which doesn’t provide the end user the detail they need to know whether or not it should be decoded as surround. In the DVD era, disc producers were much clearer about applying descriptions like “2.0 Dolby Surround” to make the provenance of the track clear.
It’s unfortunately a perfect storm of receiver quirks and incomplete labeling that has both experts and ordinary users not hearing things properly and unaware of what they’re missing.
Separately, many of the studios and labels no longer accurately indicate on the packaging or disc menus what the track is meant to be. It’ll just say “2.0” or “2.0 stereo” which doesn’t provide the end user the detail they need to know whether or not it should be decoded as surround. In the DVD era, disc producers were much clearer about applying descriptions like “2.0 Dolby Surround” to make the provenance of the track clear.
It’s unfortunately a perfect storm of receiver quirks and incomplete labeling that has both experts and ordinary users not hearing things properly and unaware of what they’re missing.