Music from AV Receiver - 2 Channel vs Multi channel

[WishTree]

I have been listening to Music mainly on an AVR and that is the only way that I have been doing for quite some years. I have toyed with various configurations and have some thoughts especially about Dolby II PLZ / 5 Channel Stereo vs Stereo / Pure Direct. I am experiencing that most of the music (top charts and lots of other genres, Fusion, Rock etc) sound much better in the multichannel modes of my AVR when compares to the two channel modes.

I have heard many Stereo Amps (up 2 Grand price range like Marantz Pearl / MF M6i etc) in demo shops and loved the way they performed - The detail, the depth and separation are awesome but I have no way to compare the same amp in multi channel mode as they are ONLY stereo amps.

Is there a fundamental challenge with me in appreciating music in Stereo? When we go to a night club or a live concert, I believe there are multiple speakers getting played rather than just two speakers in pure Stereo mode. So, if and when the real world experiences have been multi speakers how and why did the home music listening evolve into a dedicate two speaker stereo listening only.

Since I am accepting my inability to appreciate the beauty of music listening in two channel Stereo at home, please treat me as a Kid who is enjoying the colors through Kaleidoscope and do not know how to appreciate a rainbow like organized colors, and give me pointer on why and how music in Stereo sound can be enjoyed..

Seeing so much of discussions on HiFi threads, it is just a shame for me that I do not even know truly what people are really enjoying in Stereo than Multichannel and hence I put this post up.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

WishTree:
I have been listening to Music mainly on an AVR and that is the only way that I have been doing for quite some years. I have toyed with various configurations and have some thoughts especially about Dolby II PLZ / 5 Channel Stereo vs Stereo / Pure Direct. I am experiencing that most of the music (top charts and lots of other genres, Fusion, Rock etc) sound much better in the multichannel modes of my AVR when compares to the two channel modes.

I have heard many Stereo Amps (up 2 Grand price range like Marantz Pearl / MF M6i etc) in demo shops and loved the way they performed - The detail, the depth and separation are awesome but I have no way to compare the same amp in multi channel mode as they are ONLY stereo amps.

Is there a fundamental challenge with me in appreciating music in Stereo? When we go to a night club or a live concert, I believe there are multiple speakers getting played rather than just two speakers in pure Stereo mode. So, if and when the real world experiences have been multi speakers how and why did the home music listening evolve into a dedicate two speaker stereo listening only.

Since I am accepting my inability to appreciate the beauty of music listening in two channel Stereo at home, please treat me as a Kid who is enjoying the colors through Kaleidoscope and do not know how to appreciate a rainbow like organized colors, and give me pointer on why and how music in Stereo sound can be enjoyed..

Seeing so much of discussions on HiFi threads, it is just a shame for me that I do not even know truly what people are really enjoying in Stereo than Multichannel and hence I put this post up.

A two channel representation of your music should not sound like it's coming from your front two speakers. It should envelope you.

I was at my sister's house at the weekend. They have a budget 1508 Denon receiver and Tannoy FX budget sats in a 5.1 set up. Music sounded markedly better from just the front two tiny sats and the subwoofer in the stereo direct setting. The surround option just sounded wrong. And everyone was of the same view too.

 

[kinda]

I've read bits about the history of sound and from what I remember various options for music have been popular at different times including mono, stereo, and quadraphonic, but probably stereo has remained so popular as it's fairly convenient to wire up and get decent enveloping sound.

The rear speakers tend to provide the false reflections so that a living room can replicate an auditorium or other larger venue, so maybe that's what you're missing when you hear pure stereo?

Flloyd O'Toole's book 'Sound Reproduction' is really interesting from all manner of perspectives if you're into hifi / cinema sound, and also talks about the various interpretations of 'hifi' over time, and it hasn't always been the current 'as if you were there' philosophy.

But with my av amp and sub/sats I always preferred the Dolby PLII music to stereo, (not much in it), and I think maybe with more people having home cinema setups, multi-channel music might start to be more popular.

 

[kinda]

Oh, by the way, as I understand it the multiple speakers in a venue are more perpetuating the sound as obviously just two speakers in a large room wouldn't cut it.

The sound from the speakers lessens as it travels, especially with people in the room, and the additional speakers and reflections in the room are all taken into acocunt to try and provide and appropriate sound to everyone.

 

[WishTree]

Thanks alot for the replies. I am still little confused why HiFi is trying so hard to provide a real involving sound when with surround channels the effect can be achieved more effectively more economically more easily.

May be, 10 years down the line, with the improved Room Correction and more tonally matches 5.1 / 7.1 the blending in of all the speakers along with even more effective + realistic processing might make a Stereo listening a Vintage Hobby!

 

[Gerrardasnails]

WishTree:
Thanks alot for the replies. I am still little confused why HiFi is trying so hard to provide a real involving sound when with surround channels the effect can be achieved more effectively more economically more easily.

May be, 10 years down the line, with the improved Room Correction and more tonally matches 5.1 / 7.1 the blending in of all the speakers along with even more effective + realistic processing might make a Stereo listening a Vintage Hobby!

If music continues to be recorded in stereo (vast majority), listening in stereo will always sound the best.

 

[FunkyMonkey]

WishTree:

Thanks alot for the replies. I am still little confused why HiFi is trying so hard to provide a real involving sound when with surround channels the effect can be achieved more effectively more economically more easily.

May be, 10 years down the line, with the improved Room Correction and more tonally matches 5.1 / 7.1 the blending in of all the speakers along with even more effective + realistic processing might make a Stereo listening a Vintage Hobby!

You are 100% correct in your assertion that multi-channel music can £ for £ provide a more fidelitous sound with multiple speakers. Which is why SACD provided better-than-CD sound on £500 all-in-one systems than a CD-based separates system could for £1000.

However, of course, that also owes much to SACD's superior resolution.

Which is why classical music fans, where acoustics of the room in which the music is played, prefer their music on SACD. For pop music, the case for multiple channels is less clear cut, but it sure is fun!

 

[Chewy]

I have to agree with the OP, whilst I will never profess to being a stereo listening connoisseur, I have always found music listening (if you are listening to it through a home cinema set-up) to be much more involved and pleasurable when set to an 'all channel stereo' mode that straight two channel stereo.

Pure direct modes do add a little to the clarity and top end detail, but I personally find all channel stereo surrounds you and puts you in the centre of the music much more.

This may well be becasue the average home cinema set-up in the average lounge does not create the correct envelopment from straight stereo listening as would be achieved by, say, a dedicated properly configured stereo set-up, e.g. seating position and speaker positioning are both very different as I understand it.

 

[WishTree]

gdavies09031977:
I have to agree with the OP, whilst I will never profess to being a stereo listening connoisseur, I have always found music listening (if you are listening to it through a home cinema set-up) to be much more involved and pleasurable when set to an 'all channel stereo' mode that straight two channel stereo.

Pure direct modes do add a little to the clarity and top end detail, but I personally find all channel stereo surrounds you and puts you in the centre of the music much more.

That sounds exactly the way I feel. As I said the idea of 2 channel provide an envelope of Sound to immerse in the Music versus 5 Channels doing the same sounds more promising. And I am sure with a perfectly set up room (acoustics, dampening and size of the room to power of the amps balanced etc) the multichannel should sound even more involving. And this should be the case irrespective of the fact of the original recoding - Stereo or Multichannel. Obviously Multichannel will benefit more (like SACD) when the recordist decides where to place which instrument and gets renditioned the same way.

It still allures me the popularity and money that goes in pure stereo when the end objective is to have an involved / immersed / in the concert feeling.

gdavies - I still have a stirring feeling that we are missing something here.. It is like that non-fact - the native americans could not see the Colombus ships as they have never seen a ship before in their entire life!