Why is 2 Channel better than multi-channel?

When you're in a concert hall (reflected) music is coming to you from all angles as well. A MCH system is better capable of recreating this acoustic environment than 2 channel. Of course, this is not the same as some old quad mix with guitars blaring from the surround channels behind you. Here I agree with you. I also hate most synthetic surround sound generated with a DSP from 2 channel sources. What I am talking about is well recorder discrete 5.1.

Subjective as this may be, I am 100% sure that if I played the same track in 2.0 and 5.1 in my system to 100 random listeners, >90% would prefer the 5.1 track. The simple reason is that it is closer to the live experience.

Niacin wrote: Having music coming at me from all angles is as unnatural an experience as I can imagine.

I do not generally care for such either but that statement indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the goals and advantages of multichannel reproduction. It is not about dumb surround effects.

Kal

What? I said nothing about any sort of sound effects ata ll - please read my post. I said I do not like music coming at me from all angles and that is what surround sound does! It might be subtle but there are still elements coming from the rear speakers - if there weren't it would not be utilising the multi-channel system. Your need to be patronising does you no favours and was unwarranted thank you!

Niacin, in a real world live performance, sound does come from all around you. That is what accounts for the differences in the sound of a performance in a small club, a concert hall, a gymnasium and an outdoor stadium. It is, also, those differences which can be reproduced by a good multichannel recording and reproduction system. Stereo cannot do this as its sounds (including whatever site ambience was captured in the recording) come only from the front. Any immersive feeling derived from such a stereo recording are due to the acoustics of the room in which one is listening and, both logically and subjectively, are different from the original acoustics.

I do not intend to be patronizing and you are certainly entitled to exercise/express your opinions but I do not believe you can support them on the basis of our scientific understanding of sound reproduction or perceptual mechanisms.

Kal

In my limited exposure to multichannel music, I have heard recordings in which the surrounds were used to effectively reproduce the ambience of the recording space. If the mix is done well, and the multichannel playback system is set up well (two difficult tasks), then multichannel recordings can enhance the experience that "you are there," by presenting ambience cues omnidirectionally, just as they were presented in the recording space.

On the other hand, I have also heard multichannel music recordings in which, half way through a track, a lone violin started screaming out of one of the surrounds. My head whipped around like a gunshot had gone off. This approach to multichannel music can be very unnatural, to use Niacin's word.

Like all technology, multichannel technology can be a blessing or a curse, depending on how it is used.

Bryon