Ok so it's fair to say there are a few of us on the forum with as far as the purist are concerned is the devil himself yes ladies and gents an A/V amp. Now don't get me wrong i understand the valid reasons behind keeping the signal path as short and clean as possible so as to recreate the music in a way which is as close to the original recording as possible, however many of us want our stereo set up to do more than just handle music and in wanting that we are given a whole gammet of sound field possibilities for use while watching movies or listening to music. So what gives the best effect for movie or music?
Well in my 5.1 setup i like DTS for movies, in my opinion it gives more of a cinema experience than Dolby Digital in the way it moves sound around the speakers to give you a feeling of being in the action, now with a stereo signal while listening to music i've tried all the options on my amp, from standard stereo to neo6, and i find i like the SRS circle surround II most of all, it doesn't over emphisise the centre channel leaving the lions share of the work to the main front speakers so instruments and voices can be pin pointed to different places and not all lumped in the middle (a feeling you get from Dolby) also the rear speakers are used in a way which for me makes my room sound bigger, if that makes sence.