False surround?

[Reid Malenfant]

A post by Mike just piqued my interest & got me wondering about surround sound

The question is quite simple, do you only listen to surround sound when the disc that you're spinning is surround encoded, or do you use some kind of processing of a two channel disc/source & listen to an illusion that the stereo track wasn't ever supposed to be?

Ok, so stereo is an illusion but a stereo CD or record is designed to be listened to the way most of use here arrange our systems. But processing a two channel CD or whatever into some kind of surround is something I have never done, I have heard it & I didn't like it

On the other hand, if I have an original surround encoded disc I'll listen in multichannel every time rather than selecting a stereo track if it's also available


What do you do?

[chris@panteg]

Pretty much the same , Mark , my Yammy has loads of surround settings and I've had some fun playing around with the pre set settings with sometimes interesting results but mostly its hideous , the church surround is really funny .

I always prefer to listen to whatever its been encoded in , DD or DTS or just plain stereo , and of course the HD formats .

[Macca]

I always use 2 channel if I'm playing music, although that is pretty rare as I have 2 dedicated set ups. Surround sound music I just find irritating even if it has been specially mixed for surrround.

[morris_minor]

I must have about 20 SACD/DVD-A discs. It's very rare I play them at all. The SACDs have their CD layer ripped to the server, and the DVD-As have had the PCM stereo tracks ripped.

However, since the living room system is now really an AV/game type setup, playing FLACs on the Transporter is often via 4-channel stereo. Any serious listening is done on the pukka stereo in my study or on headphones.

I too played with the surround modes for stereo music, but really these don't do anything at all "attractive" to the sound that I can see, and never get used now.

[Jac Hawk]

You were talking about the thing I wrote about SRS Circle surround then Mark.
All I can really say about it is that it's not as heavy handed with music as the other systems, it cleverly opens up the sound stage, giving a better feel for where each instrument is coming from, it doesn't make the sound any more detailed, but it does make the music sound more real, as if the band is in front of you, now it may not be to everyone's taste, but I like it

[The Vinyl Adventure]

I used to have a nad amp with a pseudo surround mode called "ears" (I think)
I used to really like it for some music ... It wasn't proper hifi, but it was quite impressive the way the sound filled the room ...
Of course a proper stereo has a similar effect but better ... But at the time I couldn't afford what I have now!

[Reid Malenfant]

You were talking about the thing I wrote about SRS Circle surround then Mark.

Yes, that was what you mentioned on someones introductory thread

I just thought I'd bring it up as it's an interesting topic & could provoke some debate.

I must admit that ages ago I used to have a Realistic (Tandy) graphic equaliser that had some odd kind of "expander" on board. This made a hell of a difference to the soundstage & imaging, depending on how much the control was advanced. Shows how long ago it was as I simply can't for the life of me remember what became of it?

Anyway, back to it... Like I say, if there is a surround mix such as on DTS encoded CDs from the likes of Pete Namlook (Fax records), a DVD-A surround or SACD surround track I'll pick those before the stereo version. These are pretty much done to a set standard so once you have all the surround channels balanced at the same volume levels & all time aligned in phase you'll get to hear what was intended.

Well, assuming you have a half decent system at any rate

[morris_minor]

Is the SRS thing the system that some TVs have to make the sound "larger" than the set? I keep it switched on on our Philips set because without it the sound is really crap, as opposed to slightly crap.

[Jac Hawk]

Yes SRS do a thing for TV's to improve the sound, so the same company

[MartinT]

I don't have that problem - I listen to everything in stereo