plastic penguin:Hughes123:plastic penguin:
On most of the decent recordings on my hi-fi it sounds sensational. Last night I put on 'Saving Private Ryan' and played it through my amp and speakers. Wow! It's sonic heaven. It almost sounds like surround sound even though it's traditional two-channel.
Distant gun fire and explosions sounded like they were coming from the back door in one direction, the bedroom in the other direction. You are totally enveloped with sound, although never over powering. This is at low volumns too (nine o clock on the control).
Is there a technical term for something (stereo) where sound hits you from all directions?
"Virtual surround"? That's what it is often called.
If you want to test that, get a copy of Madonna's Vogue, because it was Q-encoded, which is probably the best thing to come to hi-fi mastering for many years, but never caught on. Basically, it produced surround effects from stereo on music. But it was seriously good and really worked unlike every other mock-surround systems today. Provided your speakers were set-up in the normal triangle, the results are scary! The other good thing? It doesn't affect the sound at all, because the processing is done when recording.
Thanks Hughes. Another example. A little while ago, I had Midsomer Murders on - the OH was in the kitchen. On the telly, there was a scene where rain started to come down. The OH called out: "Get the washing in, it starting to rain."
Ha ha ha! On my HT system (2 channels also) I was watching the Laserdisc of TopGun, and when one of the jets comes over, it was right above my head and moved diagonally from the front left to the rear right! I turned around and had to check I wasn't in a cinema or something! Naturally, Twister is the best movie to watch with a proper hi-fi! I got the DVD when I was four (don't tell anyone, but I knew all the sware-words by then!) when we first got a DVD player (it was a 1997 Pioneer one in gold) and I remember watching the scene where the tornado hits the cinema...that is a proper test for any system! That was on my grandad's JBL L100T and Yamaha Dolby Receiver and it was amazing!