"Harry Lavo" wrote in message ...
There are quite a few participants in this newsgroup who have professed
either indifference or outright dislike to the idea of surround sound. The
reason often cited is "I don't want to have instruments all around me".


If you have a chance to hear a decent surround system and have access to
all/some of these disks, give a listen. Share with the group what *YOU*
think. And if you already have multichannel, well, agree? or disagree?



I am a recent convert to surround. But at the same time I fully
understand why many listeners profess their dislike for the new kid
(multi-channel) on the block. When stereo first challenged mono many
listeners hated it much like many listeners hate multi channel today.
Some of those early stereo recordings clearly disfigured the music.

I went to CES this year specifically to check out SACD Multi-Channel.
As much as practical I tried to listen to multi-channel recordings
that I was very familiar with as two channel recordings, such as those
from Telarc. In short, I was very much sold on multi-channel based on
my listening experiences.

I found that multi-channel is *not* the proverbial "quantum leap
forward" that I had naively initially expected compared to what I can
already achieve in my existing two-channel system. Instead, I found
multi-channel to be very pleasingly like an ideal extension of
two-channel; like vastly improved two channel, not like the
“speaker everywhere” experience I had expected.
Nevertheless, I am very much an enthusiastic convert to multi-channel.

In most of the recordings I listened to, the soundstage was wider,
deeper, and taller, without any hint (in most cases) that you were
listening to more than two speakers. In fact, it more like listening
to no specific speaker at all. In other words, well done multi-channel
sounded like what stereo has been trying to accomplish all these
years.

This is why when an audiophile states "I don't like multi-channel", I
no longer understand what they are talking about. Multi-channel, done
correctly (my interpretation), is like the ultimate two-channel
experience. Only when the rear and center channels were removed from
the equation did the sound stage collapse before your eyes to the
familiar two channel experience that you come to the realization that
you were listening to "multi-channel".

The improvement that multi-channel offers, while certainly a lot more
than subtle, is still a clear extension of the two-channel experience.
If you like good two-channel, you will love good multi-channel.

Robert C. Lang