Stereo or Multi-channel?

Bachtoven

Bachtoven

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Which do you prefer? When I first bought a multi-channel system, I was in love with the extra spaciousness and overall realism. However,I just hooked up my Sony XA5400ES via XLR and couldn't believe how good it sounds! I definitely prefer it in that mode to my Oppo 105--just sounds more natural and detailed. This experiment has also made me reconsider the advantages of multi-channel sound. Yes, it is more spacious, and if properly done, makes one feel like he's in a concert hall (for classical music, which comprises 99% of my listening), but now I'm starting realize that the extra spaciousness often comes at the expense of details and imaging. Mind blown! I think I'll use the Sony in stereo for RBCDs and SACDs, with the Oppo reserved for movies and Blu-ray audio discs. Now, if only I could talk my wife into a new Esoteric or Krell SACD player! (I had previously scoffed at super-high end players since most are stereo only.)



Another issue that has been gnawing on me is having to settle for less than stellar performances/performers and artists I've never heard of in order to get a slight increase in sound quality (again, this applies only to classical music). For instance, the Shostakovich 11th on BIS has amazing bass and dynamic range, and I generally liked the performance, but when I compared it to my Gennadi Rozhdestvensky version on JVC, which I had not listened to in a few years, the latter ate the BIS performance alive! The old Soviet recording is close and a bit coarse, but for me, the performance is more important. (Sticking with Shostakovich, I compared an RBCD and SACD of the 8th String Quartet this morning: the old Borodin Quartet pretty much trounces the Mandelring Qt! In stereo, there is not that much difference in sound, either.) I think the Sony does some sort of upscaling, so maybe that's why RBCDs sound so good. I guess my point is that there is plenty of life left in older CDs! I'm going to scale back my frequent purchases of SACDs unless the music is rarely recorded and/or is a truly superior performance than one can find on RBCD.
 
+1. You never have 2/3/4/5 bands playing the same tune at the same time
 
I can live with both stereo and multi channel. While my two channel speaker was broken I used my HT for music, and spent plenty of time playing with the surround sound fields. My only objection to surround sound is that it would have to be naturally recorded (ambient sound in a venue), and I have a big enough room to have all speakers equi-distant. Since neither of those two will happen, I will primarily stay with the stereo for music, but occasionally play with the surround sound system. After all, it is made of two chanel hand-me downs, so it sounds quite nice.

I have the Sony XA-5400ES. It has been described as the best, and last, SACD player Sony made, and will make. When it first came out I read a technical paper on it that described how it converts RB to DSD, and then uses the DSD circuitry for the music. It was a little ahead of its time, and at $1500 was a steal.
 
For me it's 2-ch FTW. There are a couple of major factors. First, multichannel DAC's just aren't there yet. 2nd, the availability of hi-Rez multichannel music is abysmal. Finally, if the first two weren't the issue, the cost of having multiple loudspeakers, cables, amplification and proper integration would be too high.

Also, Ive heard very good multichannel and good two channel and if the 2-ch is setup properly imaging will take care of the front soundstage. Typically, musicians are in front of you so I don't get the need for a rear soundstage for music -- for movies, I get it. For classical, orchestral, etc. then multichannel might not be a bad thing since a lot of performances are as much the hall/venue acoustics as the performance.

Dont not get me wrong, my system is both. I use the Halo JC1s for center and surrounds and my Boulder for FR FL. But all Boulder and all Alexia's wouldn't work on so many levels.
 
I read your post with great interest. First I do have the Krell SACD/CD player and like a bit more than the Esoteric K-03, which I had in my system too (my dealer let me try both*). (and I have an Oppo 105 and SVS subs!!!!!)

I’d like to tell you that I went back and forth on this question for a long time, but I didn’t. Originally, up until last year I had a two channel Levenson 32 in my system. The Krell 707 has a two channel pre-amp mode that turns out to be better than the 32. The Krell SACD player has a five channel out as well as a two channel out. Yet, you can only use the balanced out in the two channel mode.

I have found, with some playing around, that the two channel sound is, frankly, the best. In a magic world, where my middle channel was perfectly matched to my left and right speakers, perhaps a three channel sound would give me a bit more fullness. The rears, at first sound great, but after a while they didn’t sound just right. The two channel musical sound was simply the best. It didn’t take long. Just one day or so of listening and then returning to it to check the answer.

I also felt that I might be to used to 2 channel sound, but I think it was more real as two channel.

I do, however, use multichannel for movies and Tv and just love it. But, most often, the soundtrack was engineered for that and many of the sounds, rockets, guns, voices are not music.

*Both the Krell and the Esoteric gave very detailed sound, but the Krell was more musical to me. Others disagree and others agree, but they are similar sounding units.
 
I would prefer that this became viable, as described here .:)
Unfortunately, 99.99999% of the music market does not desire such fidelity, so in lieu of that I take 2ch and make 4. Based on this
Guess that makes me a mostly mch guy (though not that dreadful SACD AND DVD-A stuff) for all acoustic music (mainly classical, jazz, big band).
...And 2ch when I play rock/electronic.

cheers,

AJ
 
I agree with you here as Sony being one darn good RB and SACD player for the money. In fact, It replaced my mcd301 few years back.

But after listening and comparing both sony and MW 105d, I'm liking the MW oppo 105 more.
 
I own a Parasound A21 power amp that I gave to my son. I replaced it with a Pass X250 power amp. I can tell you that the improvement in sound was tremendous. The Pass X250 gave me a more 3D, holographic sound with great air, transparency and a huge sound stage-wide and deep. I think that adding a high end 2 channel amp will give you more of that sound that you like. Adding a good 2ch preamp will also work wonders. I upgraded to a BAT VK51se preamp from my AVA Ultra Plus Hybrid preamp and my system was further transformed. My system sounds like a concert hall without loss of detail and resolution.
 
I love sacd and dvd-audio.Beethoven sixth is incredible and Frampton comes Alive sounds like your right there.There is definitely sound that comes from behind you especially on live stuff.But I also love my stereo rig too.
 
As I wrote in my welcome post, I have 15K and 1K R2R tapes and have digitized over 8K of them, all in stereo. However, I have had a parallel multichannel system, with an Oppo 95 and now an Exasound E28 DAC. I play ripped SACD's (that I have created with a Sony PS3) on the E28.

First to source material. My collection is essentially all classical. There, obviously, is very little real mch that is old. The exception are the 3 channel SACD's released by RCA of their Living Stereo collection which replicates the original recordings, rather than the two channel mix downs. (Same with a handful of Mercury Living Presence SACD's IIRC). No rear channel, but there was none in the originals. As far as modern recordings, my collection of SACD
s has been slanted toward three labels - BIS, Channel Classics, and Pentatone. The BIS recordings are mostly made of the complete Bach Cantatas with Suzuki conducting - a wonderful set, with about 60% in mch SACD and the rest as CD's. Channel Classics has some great young performers, like period violinist Rachel Podger and cellist Pieter Wispielway (sp?) and Pentatone had violinist Julia Fischer until she defected to Decca. Pentatone which was formed by a few former Philips execs has also licensed some older Philips recordings and reissued them with less extreme frequency rolloff characteristic of the Philips vinyl. I often buy my SACD's from England (MDT is one reliable company) where, one sale and without VAT, they are quite reasonable, even with the extra postage to the US.

I also have a bunch of mch bluray videos, mostly live operas, which are much cheaper way to see and hear grand opera. I think we spent about $2K for two tickets to the Wagner Ring Cycle in SF a few years ago, for front of first balcony seats, by no means the most expensive seats in the house. I am guessing that my entire collection of 50+ blurry operas, including 3 sets of the complete Ring, costs less than those two sets of 4 tickets. Hirez bluray does not have the sonic quality of SACD or stereo records or other hires media. However, I find that having the high resolution video along with the audio, attracts my senses in a way that minimizes the sonic shortcomings.

I have a total of about 500 SACD's nothing like my vinyl collection. The ease of using software like A+ with my Mac Mini and E28 make it very easy to listen from my listening position.

For hardware, I have a custom switch which flips between two different preamps - a Herron VTSP3A for stereo, and a Conrad Johnson MET-1 for mch. As I mentioned in my welcome post, having Avantgarde speakers all around, means the sonic quality of center and rear (Avantgarde Solos) matches very well the LR Avantgarde Duos.

I enjoy the sonic ambience of the mch recordings and with classical recordings, it is almost always ambience that one gets, unlike some pop recordings and movies I have heard. Having both stereo and mch is a very nice luxury.

Larry

PS. When I met with several Decca execs and staff in June in London, they were wondering why bluray has not been a more successful medium for hires sound only. From their perspective, bluray had the installed base than SACD did not, the storage capacity of bluray was much greater, the cost of the medium was much lower, etc.
 
Well, I can certainly live with both, but I much prefer 2-channel for music. Multichannel music is interesting if it's done well and correctly, unfortunately, there is not much out there like that...very rare.
That said, sometimes I will play with multi-channel settings with certain music for fun, but always find myself back at 2-channel pretty quickly.
Of course then there are movies which if encoded with multi-channel I prefer to use it, however I have found that at least among my DVD selections I own very little was multi-channel encoded well there too. I don't know why that is.
 
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