2. home-theater
  3. 1039233321

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
jrwr7
211 posts
 
Hey all,

This might have been a case of bad equipment/room set up. God knows I've heard my share of HT systems, some good and others not so good. I love HT for what it is for me. I never have to stand in line to see a movie, no obnoxious people, except for me. And, whenever I want, I can stop the movie for any reason and come back to it whenever. And last but not least, I think my system sounds better than 95% of the movie theaters in NY. Unfortunately, I have to combine both 2ch and HT but I think I do it well and I will address the shortcomings as finances and my wife allow. Have a happy holiday season everybody......John
unsound
7,329 posts
 
IMHO, more often than not.
sogood51
2,157 posts
 
I have been playing around with it on my system a little bit lately, I have dvd audio and sacd multichannel. So far I do not think most of the stuff I have sounds very good. I can not blame that on my system in anyway so far,it seems to be disc related because I do have a couple that sound very good. I hope they get a better handle on how to record them. I can say that the very few I have liked sound better than any two channel recording I have played on my system. They could be on to something here if they do it right but I don't have much faith in the record companys so we will see.
bomarc OP
501 posts
 
Thanks for the comments so far. I don't think poor equipment explains what I heard. Poor speaker placement might have been a factor, however. Granted, I might have just stumbled on a bad example.
steuspeed's avatar
steuspeed
501 posts
 
Think about how much we tweek our 2ch speaker set-ups. We spike um, we toe um, we tilt um. We move the damn things all over the place trying to eek out the tightest focus and the largest soundstage. Setting up good surround sound is the same, but even more complicated. You have speaker and sub placement, then you have this complicated pre-amp processor or receiver. Even if the speakers are well placed, an impropper set-up on the processor can mess everything up. Unless you have some real high-end stuff, most home theater gear is mid-fi equivalent, so don't expect to be blown away. Many movie soundtracks are poorly edited or have over produced effects. Find a good reference disc to audition with. I tweek home theater systems with reference audio discs to dial in the front speakers. About 80% of movie soundtracks are music, so if you get that right, the dialog, bullets and explosions should be pretty damn close.
More to discover