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MultiChannel too complicated for most...

I've been on the gon for a little while now, posting and enjoying all the spectacular virtual systems. There is one thing I've noticed though. It's that many seem to associate the terms 2 channel and simple, especially when heading and detailing their virtual systems. I don't see it too often in threads, but every now and again it'll show up their as well.

Me being the multichannel guy I am, this small and most times overlooked detail seemed to jump out at me. Its been a passing thought for a while, but seems to be a somewhat valid question.

Now...before I go any further, this is not in insight a riot and bombard the moderators with request to have this thread pulled because it "potentially offends" 2 channel lovers. This is not that kind of posting, but just posing a question that has crossed my mind more times that one.

Do 2channel only audiophiles shun multichannel (discrete or DSP based) because they find it too complicated?

If the concept of thinking in 360 degrees (Multichannel) were simplified, for a lack of better terms, would multichannel be more accepted?
cdwallace
tbg
5,263 posts
 
Chasmo, you are certainly right about how expensive it would be to match the quality of my two channel with at least three additional channels as well as how much more difficult it would be to deal with the proper placement of the speakers and setting everything to proper levels. Then there is the matter of software. I have heard mc setups at shows and in dealers. I heard nothing that interested me. Were it possible to go back and capture outstanding performances in the past in mc, I might be interested. I concede that there have been some efforts to do this.

You suggest that 2-channel is like standing in an open doorway rather than in the theater. I find that much mc is like being in the center of the orchester and having a blanket over your head. You may know the music is all around you but it has no realism.
jmcgrogan2's avatar
jmcgrogan2
6,346 posts
 
Tbg, let me say right on. :)
kr4's avatar
kr4
3,688 posts
 
Tbg wrote: "You suggest that 2-channel is like standing in an open doorway rather than in the theater. I find that much mc is like being in the center of the orchester and having a blanket over your head."

You just have not heard anything representative of what good MCH can do. I can understand the arguments that good MCH is too expensive, too complex (for some) or too bulky but I cannot understand not finding it superior to 2 channel.

Kal
tbg
5,263 posts
 
Two channel would be preferable to two channel through a mc setup. There are just too few available mc recordings to undertake the expense, especially since no one at shows has shown the foresight to bother with good recordings. Often now days at shows the demonstrators seem indifferent even to the quality of two channel recordings.
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
Tbg...With excellent imaging speakers and with precise placement of them in an acoustically treated room a 2-channel system can create the sensation of three-dimensional space. But this is, in the end, only a psychoacoustical trick, and is easily disrupted by moving the listener's location. On the other hand, a good multichannel system, especially with the 2+2+2 speaker configuration creates a real (not in your head) three dimensional sound field. You can walk around in it.
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