Can you hear bit rate?

@richardbrand wrote:

Equipment-focused magazines like TAS and Stereophile pin 2-channel to their mastheads and resolutely ignore these advances in sound quality [...]

Whether it leads, in more absolute terms, to an advancement in sound quality with immersive recordings through multichannel setups is debatable, certainly from my chair. There are many variables involved comparing a 2-channel setup to an immersive ditto, and likely it means comparing two completely different setups where the core 2-channel audio will be the deciding factor by the end of the day. 

@devinplombier 

Immersive sound is attractive, but how will it avoid the fate of quadraphonic sound in the 70s?

Quadraphonic sound in the 70s would mainly have been based on records, and really did not offer much in the way of channel separation.  It was only the advent of SACD some 25 years ago that could deliver much better than CD sound and up to 5.1 channels.  In other words, light years ahead of quadraphonic.  Still very popular for classical music in Europe and Japan, where it was invented, SACD was very poorly marketed in the US

I moved to SACD when the Gramophone magazine issued its reviewers with Marantz universal disk players which handled CD, SACD and DVD.  It did not cost me much to add two rear "ambience" channels, which I drove with an old Quad (the manufacturer!) 2-channel amplifier. I have never bothered with a central front speaker because my main speakers emulate point sources of sound and have excellent imaging.

Nowadays not all universal disk players include SACD, mainly because of manufacturer’s rivalry, for example Panasonic is loath to licence Sony stuff!.  But they all include Blu-ray and thanks to 2L.no, can play Pure Audio Blu-ray disks with all sorts of high-resolution tracks, including Dolby Atmos.

Now just about every Home Theatre installation has a Blu-ray player and multiple audio channels.  The only thing people have to actually buy to get immersive sound is the silver disks, which are much cheaper than new records.

No doubt in the next few years, streaming services will have the bandwidth (the OP’s bit rate) to deliver high quality immersive sound.

New surround sound recordings have already been available using the same SACD media for 25 years.  Today there's over 6,000 classical SACDs listed by Presto. You can’t say that for quadraphonic.

@richardbrand 

Makes sense to leverage existing, popular home theater standards. I mean, personally I do believe that home theater and music systems should have their own rooms, but as you point out it's easy enough to add a pair of rear speakers and an extra stereo amp to a two-channel system.

It sounds like HT and SACD have made immersive sound possible for quite a number of years, yet the uptake seems to have been minimal and you hardly ever hear about it. I wonder why? It does sound like a good idea.

On a side note, wouldn't the recording / mastering / processing issues that already plague two-channel media be compounded / complicated by an order of magnitude by multichannel?

@erik_squires 

 There are many variables involved comparing a 2-channel setup to an immersive ditto, and likely it means comparing two completely different setups where the core 2-channel audio will be the deciding factor by the end of the day

Not really in my case, because my 2-channel setup is the same, whether used stand-alone or effectively embedded as the main channels in an immersive set up.

Most audiophiles would probably agree that speakers are the most important part of any 2-channel set up.  My main speakers are either Quad ESL2905 or KEF Reference 1.  Not too shabby.  They are driven by a 2-channel Krell Class A amplifier, again not too shabby.  They can be fed from analogue record players (Garrard 301 and soon a Holbo air-bearing system) via a Krell pre-amplifier.

So far pretty standard 2-channel.

But for silver disks, including CD, SACD, Blu-ray and 4K, I use a Reavon player as a transport and feed a Marantz AV-8802 pre-processor via HDMI.  The Marantz contains 7 high quality dacs from AKM. It can handle everything I can throw at it, including native DSD, multi-channel high resolution PCM, Dolby Atmos and 4K movies.

Two Marantz output channels feed the Krell amplifier, and six more go to a Perreau chassis containing three 2-channel amplifiers.

The difference between 2-channel and surround can be quite subtle, depending on what the producer wanted to capture, or it can be awesome.  Going to immersive sound is not subtle but unambiguously creates an experience way beyond 2-channel.

Now this observation seems odd to me, but many 2L.no recordings place instruments all around the listener.  I don't notice my rear speakers being any worse than my front speakers - I just hear great music coming from an integrated venue.  Same with Deutsche Grammophon Dolby Atmos organ recordings from Notre Dame in Paris, where my four Klipsch in-celling speakers contribute seamlessly, to my ears at least.

@devinplombier 

It sounds like HT and SACD have made immersive sound possible for quite a number of years, yet the uptake seems to have been minimal and you hardly ever hear about it. I wonder why? It does sound like a good idea.

This is something I am trying to change!  In a way, it seems like another North America versus the rest of the world thing.  Arguably, it took Dire Straits to kick-start CD in Europe.  They have just re-released Brothers in Arms in surround on SACD and I think the sound is just brilliant.  Dark Side of the Moon has just been released on Pure Audio Blu-ray using Dolby Atmos encoding - absolutely mind blowing!

It is not helped when the two major audiophile magazines don't look beyond two-channel.  Why are high-end SACD players incapable of playing more that the 2-channel content on SACDs which also have the same music as 5-channel content?  Why persist with an antiquated 2-channel digital standard, I2S, designed without error detection or recovery, for transferring digital music between boxes?

On a side note, wouldn't the recording / mastering / processing issues that already plague two-channel media be compounded / complicated by an order of magnitude by multichannel?

The classical view

Well, I think you can be sure that any classical recording team that goes to the trouble of setting up for surround or immersive recording will be highly focused on sound quality, to justify the extra setup time and expense.  By and large, they find the right microphones and the right locations for them, and let the conductor and the players balance the sound, like Mercury did with Living Presence.

To me, SACD releases declare that "We cared about the sound".  Further, as orchestras take control of their recordings, it makes sense for them to invest to permanently equip their venues for surround.  The Berliner Philharmoniker has a major investment in its Digital Concert Hall, which encompasses multi-channel, streaming and automated video facilities including remote programmed cameras.

LSO Live similarly releases all its new recordings on SACD, and at low cost because the performances are regular concert performances.

2L.no seems to have a standardised microphone tree and places the musicians around the microphones, rather than positioning the microphones to suit the orchestra.

The multi-mike, multi-track, mixed-later view.

No extra expense or difficulty during the recording sessions, and I would have thought a lot more delivery flexibility afterwards.  There's money to be made re-mixing for multi-channel and if the original tracks are good, the re-releases can be superb.  They can also be terrible if the guy doing the mixing is near deaf, Rolling Stones!