13.2, 5.1 and so on. "the best seat in the house"


Perhaps with movies people enjoy the sounds of a monster coming at them from the left-rear. All of the best concert halls with live music I have seen from around the world....the music was in front of me with depth and left to right ....but nothing coming from the rear. Is this the fate of the high-end to be done in by B.S. of glorified T.V.?

 

 

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jusam

FWIW, I watch concerts recorded in high definition in Dolby Vision on my 120 inch screen while I am listening in 9.2.7 immersive audio and I still know its BS. Good luck with two speakers pointed at your head, you can smell that BS from a mile away with your eyes closed. At least I can see what they were doing when it wasn’t BS and an actual live performance.

 

 

It gets better with apps. There is an app called Plex (look it up) that serves up channels that play concerts (about 10 channels of various genres) FREE, 24/7. Some of the perfomances were recorded in the fifties (Lionel Hampton, Miles, sarah Vaughn, Louis Armstrong, etc) and it has stuff all the way through today. With two channel it would be flat, upmixed to immersive it is at least a little closer to a non BS environment. Qwest TV is also available on platforms like Roku. You should check it out for some free "glorified TV" BS:

https://qwest.tv

A lot depends upon the recording.  Some Multichannel mixes are done vey well, with just a bit of reflection in the rears with a significant gain in ambience.  Try the Pittsburgh Symphony Brahms cycle led by Marek Janowski on the Pentatone label.

The RCA Living Stereo mixes are interesting in 3.0, because many times these are old familiar recordings that were originally recorded in3 channels and then down mixed to 2 channel.

@mahler123 

Bingo, the recording, the engineer, the master tape, it all matters. 
I can remaster stereo recordings in DSD using my Sony TA-ZH1ES DAC.

I can upmix any recording to immersive audio (atmos, auro-3D, DTS, etc) in my processor. I can't make steak out of hamburger but at least I can cook it the way I like, or even eat it raw. :)

I have found 5.1 can sound great for music, but only if the equipment is perfectly matched, and everything is perfectly set up and adjusted...otherwise it sounds terrible...whereas movies it's easy to get good sound, maybe hard to get great sound...but totally different