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Is 5.1 Really This Bad?

I've not paid much attention to multichannel, because I'm not much of a vidiot and because two speakers is all I'm likely to get (or so I've been told). But I was in a (low-end) store with a nice comfy surround-sound room today, and sat down to watch a few minutes of what I gather was The Phanton Menace. There were plenty of sound effects going on all around me, but I noticed that they had very little to do with what was going on on the screen. Even when they did, there were obvious discontinuities: A vehicle would drive off the screen to the right, and its sound would seem to disppear, then reappear in the right speaker.

Needless to say, I was less than impressed. Is this wretchedness typical of what one hears on a movie soundtrack in a home theater? Does 5.1 require a sort of suspension of disbelief, where we teach ourselves to ignore the discontinuities because the whole thing sounds cool? Or is this just a particularly bad DVD?

Speaker setup appeared questionable: The fronts were place well wide of a very wide screen, and one of the rears was partially obscured by an overstuffed leather chair.

I'd be the first to concede the inherent limitations of two-channel reproduction. But after this experience, I'm feeling rather better about those limitations.
bomarc
kinsekd
252 posts
 
It's all in the execution. I have seen (or rather heard)some really good 5.1. And I have heard some that is positively dreadful.
subaruguru
1,375 posts
 
Me too. I spent two years assembling an extremely fine 2 ch music system, and there's NO WAY that's going to be transmogrified into a HT...besides, that's the MUSIC room with Steinway and assorted African percussion ornaments.
The family room's TV DID get treated to 5.1 this summer, however. I decided upon a Spendor front trio as I didn't want to forego good FM music. getting surrounds that sounded good ON THE WALL (+boundary support) was not as easy as expectsde. Even venerable JM Labs and PSB beefy surrounds got WAY too chesty and sloggy when pushed up against a wall. So I settled on Boston Acoustics VR-MX surrounds, and spoke with their designer as I picked them up at the factory (a friend is a designer there). He was particularly proud of how that speaker came out, and indeed verified that it's bass was specifically tailored for boundary support's effect on 2pi-4pi radiatoion correction.
These surrounds don't perfectly match the incredibly seamless Spendor trio (S3/1p and SC3 center...all 89 dB/w), but they're damned close. A great Boston PV1000 sub brings up the bottom for HT tricks, and a fine and cheap NAD 751 receiver with a terrific 2ch/5.1 synthesis matrix (EARS) proves surprisingly good at creating 5.1 from regular TV.
Add some Canare S11 speaker cable and their ICs and I assembled a quite wonderful HT system for under $3k. Now it doesn't AT ALL approach my EMC-1/AlephP/Aleph2/ParsifalEncoresvia SPM ref system in many ways, but for HT and background FM its pretty terrific. the Plateau V23 stands ($200) and new Panasonic 36" Tau TV ($1500) of course help.
The ref 2ch system has PHENOMENAL resolution, dynamics, musicality, and as I sit in the nearfield an incredibly deep soundstage. The HT system's soundstage is quite two-dimensional, but indeed wide and seamless, with occasional, entertaining 3D from the rear surrounds. Fun for football games, as the EARS sends the crowd around me while those goofy guys do the play-by on Monday night.
Try to remember what the 5.1 is best for and you'll be able to engineer a system that's appropriate for its strengths...and that's NOT reference level music!
Good luck sorting out your priorities, rooms, and entertainment options.
Ern
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,541 posts
 
I have always found that a good book and a little imagination surpasses 5.1 on all scales.
twl
3,251 posts
 
Careful, Bomarc, you're beginning to sound like me.:^)
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