Most of that "all around me" effect is the sound from the left/rights bouncing between the room's walls. The recording itself can also contain special phase effects intentionally included that can also create an airy atmosphere & if really cranked up, sometimes an almost "virtual" rear channel effect (for more on the consumer playback versions, look up TruSurround, SRS, Circle Surround). Q Sound is another common recording system for this effect: if you want to check it out, Madonna's Immaculate Collection was recorded with it. The most startling demosntration of it is at the beginning of the song "Vogue", when she says (acappella) "What are you lookin' at?" If you're facing the speakers, it seems like the vocal is originating from the side & slightly to the rear. On this album, one of my very favorite downtempo/funk/chillout titles, track #3 has a similar effect where a particular keyboard does seem to emanate from behind you (though rather blurrily, but in a good way).
But none of these effects - virtual or otherwise - comes close to matching the discreteness & full imaging of a true multichannel recording.
As far as 5.1 mixes being silly, I'll admit some aren't exactly pieces of art, but the good ones can be much more satisfying than their, in comparison, flat stereo versions where all the instruments are crammed together in front of me, struggling to be heard. Better speakers would help with freeing some of them up, but only to a point, because the laws of acoustic physics places limits on this.
But even with "just" four speakers, you then have not just one imaging plane to work with, but several i.e. there is literally much more physical space to work with. This allows the mixer to place intruments (or sound effects for movies) in their own individual space, so even at low volume levels they can be easily heard or as some put it, they can "breathe". With stereo though, the mixer can literally run out of space and he has to push some sounds so far back in the mix to get them to fit you can barely hear them & they end up contributing little to the music. It's been revealed that on some classic albums, like Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, that the engineer had to actually leave out certain sonic elements because of these constraints. But on the 5.1 version, he was able to put them back in the music as originally intended.
To me and many others, a good surround mix (whether 5.1, 4.1 or quad) feels much more alive and involving. Music is art, so I don't care if it doesn't match the "reality" of a performance that took place in a venue where physical & non-artistic constraints demand the perfromers to be in placed front of me.
Make no mistake, to hear 5.1 music properly takes some work as far as speaker placement and speaker type goes. But luckily, as others have mentioned in the forum in the recent past, a system optimized for 5.1 music can also sound great with movies. This includes the speakers' physical characterisitcs and their placement in the room (IMO actually better than the accepted movie playback standard: how can you hear effects behind you if the surround speakers are at your *sides*?).
But like with any subjective issue like food or cars, sometimes people just plain don't like surround music for whatever reason (personally, I think most wine tastes like sweetened vinegar, much to the horror of my neighbor.
).
But none of these effects - virtual or otherwise - comes close to matching the discreteness & full imaging of a true multichannel recording.
As far as 5.1 mixes being silly, I'll admit some aren't exactly pieces of art, but the good ones can be much more satisfying than their, in comparison, flat stereo versions where all the instruments are crammed together in front of me, struggling to be heard. Better speakers would help with freeing some of them up, but only to a point, because the laws of acoustic physics places limits on this.
But even with "just" four speakers, you then have not just one imaging plane to work with, but several i.e. there is literally much more physical space to work with. This allows the mixer to place intruments (or sound effects for movies) in their own individual space, so even at low volume levels they can be easily heard or as some put it, they can "breathe". With stereo though, the mixer can literally run out of space and he has to push some sounds so far back in the mix to get them to fit you can barely hear them & they end up contributing little to the music. It's been revealed that on some classic albums, like Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, that the engineer had to actually leave out certain sonic elements because of these constraints. But on the 5.1 version, he was able to put them back in the music as originally intended.
To me and many others, a good surround mix (whether 5.1, 4.1 or quad) feels much more alive and involving. Music is art, so I don't care if it doesn't match the "reality" of a performance that took place in a venue where physical & non-artistic constraints demand the perfromers to be in placed front of me.
Make no mistake, to hear 5.1 music properly takes some work as far as speaker placement and speaker type goes. But luckily, as others have mentioned in the forum in the recent past, a system optimized for 5.1 music can also sound great with movies. This includes the speakers' physical characterisitcs and their placement in the room (IMO actually better than the accepted movie playback standard: how can you hear effects behind you if the surround speakers are at your *sides*?).
But like with any subjective issue like food or cars, sometimes people just plain don't like surround music for whatever reason (personally, I think most wine tastes like sweetened vinegar, much to the horror of my neighbor.
).
